Have you ever wondered how jazz—music that a Swing Era critic called “midnight symphony”—gained as much footing in the classroom as it had on the dance floor? Well, if you live in Louisiana, you needn’t look far for answers re g a rding how musicians began seeking universities where they could formally study jazz.
Louisiana’s
own Southern University was the first historically black college or university
to develop an academic degree program in jazz. This at the urging of a young
musician who during the 1960s had become one of the nation’s first three
jazz educators to work as an artist-in-residence in public schools. Clarinetist
Alvin Batiste, director of the Southern University Jazz Institute from 1969
to present, was that young musician.
Batiste, who earned a bachelor of science in music eduction from Southern
University in 1955 and a master’s degree in music composition and perf
o rmance from LSU, joined
Southern’s faculty as assistant band director in 1965. By 1969, this
recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship given
to 60 teachers in the United States for interdisciplinary teaching had gained
approval from university p resident G. Leon Netterville to establish the Southern
University Jazz Institute. Jazz combos were assembled, and, in 1970, the groups
earned top awards at the American Southeastern Collegiate Jazz Championship
in Mobile, Alabama. In 1973 and ‘74, the ensemble toured Mali, Guinea,
the Ivory Coast, Zaire, Togo, the Cameroon, and Benin for the United States
Department of State. Nearly a dozen jazz ensemble students earned National
Endowment for the Arts study grants during the ‘70s, and the ensemble
made three recordings.
Today, the institute’s alumni include music educators such as Earl Stewart, a classical composer, a conductor, and former Berklee College of Music professor, currently on faculty at the University of California-San Diego. Music industry executives like MCA Records Senior Vice President Randy Jackson, and Los Angeles producer Dennis Nelson, also are among alumni.
There
are countless recording artists among the ranks, including New Orleans’
Henry Butler, Donald Harrison, and Michael Ward; Europe’s
Coco York, an Arkansas native; Baton Rouge’s own Herman Jackson, a Southern
University percussion instructor and touring artist who has worked with musicians
diverse as Nancy Wilson, Chuck Berry, and Eartha Kitt; and Michigan’s
Vincent York, who, in 1973, became the first Southern University graduate
to earn the bachelor of arts in the jazz studies program.
While
at Southern, York also worked in New Orleans public schools and performed
with the New Orleans Symphony and Cannonball Adderly—as did many of his
classmates—utilizing thestudy grants they’d earned through a National
Endowment for
the Arts program. The students’ work in New Orleans helped encourage
many New Orleans natives, including Branford Marsalis, to later study with
Batiste.
Typical of recent alumni are Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra members Wess Anderson, a native New Yorker, and Reginal Veal; Lafayette native George Fontenette, a now New Yorkbased producer who scores commercials for Pepsi and others; and Detroit native LaShawn Gary, a former Baton Rouge Highbased Talented Arts Program teacher who now is an arranger for R&B and gospel re c o rding artists such as Anita Baker.
There’s also Roland Guerin, bassist for Sony Records’ Marcus Roberts; Donald Edwards, drummer for Verve Records’ Mark Whitfield; and drummer Troy Davis, who played with the late Betty Carter. And there’s Margeret Valet, who has performed with mentor Alvin Batiste for more than 10 years. Alumni Ralph Chapman and Harry Anderson are professors at Alabama State University and the University of Florida at Gainesville, respectively. And as jazz outreach artist-in-residence for New Orleans public schools, alumnus Jonathon Bloom has formalized jazz music instruction in his district.
The SU
Jazz Institute has made impressive strides, and the program is still growing.
Students today benefit from a technology-informed curriculum that earned the
music department and its jazz program full accreditation from the National
Association of Schools of Music. In 1990, the SU Department of Visual and
Performing Arts
began offering one of the University’s only two associate degrees. Today,
the two-year associate degree in jazz performance accommodates students who
have an acute interest in formal study but whose aptitude for professional
performance would otherwise lead them away from their studies before completing
a four-year degree.
Currently, a promising cast of students include Dallas native Quamon Fowler (recipient of the 2001 Panasonic Young Soloist Award at Kennedy Center) and Maurice Brown (recipient of the Miles Davis Foundation’s 2001 Miles Davis Award for Excellence in Creative Trumpet Playing). Fowler and Brown this year have been accepted into residencies with Kennedy Center’s Jazz Ahead program, whose founder, the late Betty Carter, moved to Kennedy Center in 1998. Brown and Fowler, through Jazz Ahead, perform at Kennedy Center in April 2002.
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