Report on the 1st IASJ Jazz Education Conference 2003

30 October - 2 November 2003, The Hague, The Netherlands

By Walter Turkenburg

Full Report

Following is a short report on the 1st IASJ Jazz Education Conference 2003. If you want to receive the full report, a nice booklet containing all information, please send an e-mail with your name and address to: info@iasj.com

Short Report

Over seventy representatives of institutes for jazz education from all over the world came together in The Hague, The Netherlands from the 30th of October till the 2nd of November 2003. The goal of the conference was to look back on what has been reached in jazz education in the past decades and to look forward into the future. Lectures in the morning, workshops in the afternoon and a lively group discussion at the end of the day brought new insights and new questions to the participants who were diversified by background but unified by collaboration.

The opening reception at the Royal Conservatoire on the Thursday evening of the 30th of October became livelier as more and more participants came in. It was a mixture of seeing back old friends and getting to know new colleagues. Later that night the more than seventy participants went to hear a concert of the Big Band Royal Conservatoire conducted by John Ruocco. The band presented a program of pieces that were played in the former years at the North Sea Jazz Festival. On Friday 31 October professor Frans de Ruiter, principal of the Royal Conservatoire and dean of the faculty of the arts of the Leiden University in his opening speech underlined the important role jazz can play in the interdisciplinary study of the arts. Jazz and jazz studies have important intrinsic values that must be shared with other sciences. Jamey Aebersold in his notable keynote speech made clear to the astonishment of his audience that jazz education for him started as a spin off of a tenor-banjo method. His never told personal history was filled with humor but also gave insight into the important moments that made the start of his relationship with jazz education possible. IASJ Secretary Charlie Miklin gave a clear view of the different aspects that exist in jazz education throughout the various corners of the world. Like jazz music itself, jazz education is enormously diversified. Executive director of the AEC, the Association of European Conservatoires Martin Prchal in his speech positioned jazz education in the ever-changing realities surrounding higher music education. Jazz education is fairly new in higher education in Europe and not equally accepted in every country. New legislation will leave an important impact on jazz education in the years to come. In the time left that morning, Heinz Czadek described the various dialects in jazz research around the world. As it turned out, jazz research is a broad notion, an enormous umbrella under which an extremely diverse number of activities take place. In the afternoon Jamey Aebersold worked with young teenage students who had never before improvised. Within minutes he had them going, much to the surprise of the players and audience. Peter Guidi of the Amsterdam school of music demonstrated with his student ensemble of high school students that jazz can be hip and attractive to the age group that is generally known to be interested in other music. Late in the afternoon the participants of the conference came together to discuss matters that were touched upon that day. In an extremely lively and intense discussion the over seventy colleagues in jazz education exchanged ideas, came with different and sometimes conflicting points of views, asked sharp questions and came away with remarkable answers. It became clear that jazz education is relatively young and has a small but exciting history to look back upon. The future will certainly bring new dangers, challenges and developments.

The second day of the 1st IASJ Jazz Conference 2003 if possible was even more intense. Jim Collier stated that a new approach in the research of jazz would provide jazz education with support for its assumed premises. New research will also prove the necessity to reevaluate many things that are taken for granted, especially what seems to be understood concerning jazz rhythm, an area that calls for further research. Lector Nico Smit of the royal conservatoire, researching music education of the 21st century, came up with a number of critical questions about jazz education. His message for jazz education was to develop an identity of its own and not make the same mistakes as has happened in classical music education. The remainder of the morning session of the second day was for two speakers who presented the realities of teaching jazz to non-professionals. Nigel Scaife from the UK described the experiences his publishing company has with the implementation of teaching materials and the grading system that goes along with it in different parts of the world. Once again it became clear that there is a vast demand and even an enormous market for the teaching of jazz other than in professional music education training. Joe Anderies showed extremely interesting films of his classes in which young people are enjoying "this jazz thing". Jazz can make a difference in the lives of young people!

In the afternoon parallel sessions took place. Psychologist Henkjan Honing proved that the perception of the listener should be taken as point of departure in the listening to jazz music and that there are tools to measure this. At the same time psychologist Geoffrey Collier showed that the research in cognitive psychology covers all fields of music psychology. The progress made in the last years will support and correct many assumptions in jazz education. Bjorn Alterhaug and his colleague John Pal Inderberg from Norway proved that improvisation in jazz can be taught both inside and outside jazz education in a flexible way. Music students of any genre can benefit from the insights that the study of improvisation in jazz has contributed. Also during the afternoon sessions, Rolf Delfos from The Netherlands had his classical music students approach simple songs and musical forms from an improvisational angle. The classical music students, when asked, replied that their understanding of classical music has improved since improvisation was practiced.

The scheduled one-hour discussion at the end of the second intensive conference day lasted almost two hours and a half. The fountain of ideas, conclusions, opinions, questions, additional information, disagreements, agreements, and views on the future of jazz education kept streaming. Everyone of the participants left the conference inspired and with many new ideas about jazz education. On Sunday 2 November in the General Assembly of the IASJ the possibilities were discussed of continuing the momentum of the 1st IASJ Jazz Conference. No decision was taken on the exact time and place of the follow up conference, but it is for sure that within two years the 2nd IASJ Jazz Education Conference will take place.

Walter Turkenburg