Textbook Jazz
During the 1960s, Marian McPartland had been taking
her group into schools on Long Island, originally through an organisation called PACE (Performing Arts Curriculum
Enrichment) and then its successor organization, the Performing Arts Foundation.
At first her quartet simply gave jazz concerts to large groups of students in assemblies. When the Marian
McPartland Trio finished the season of playing concerts in Junior High Schools
on Long Island, Marian McPartland expressed
a wish to have closer contact with the students.
Having been a pioneer in jazz
education, Clem De Rosa supported Marian’s ideas. At her insistence, the role of her group in the Performing Arts Curriculum Enrichment Program was for her and her supporting
musicians to perform in classrooms rather than only present concerts:
We would go, for instance, into a class where
they would be reading a Steinbeck short story. In fact I remember one occasion
when they were reading ‘The Pearl’ and the teacher wanted to have us improvise
music to the part they were reading. One child would get up and read and we’d
listen then improvise some music. Then somebody else would read and we’d improvise
something else and it really got exciting to see the kids react. We have a
lot of this music on tape and it worked out very well. Then we’d go into art
classes or any class they wanted us for and we could always come up with music
to fit the situation. We were even in a science class where they were writing
all sorts of formulas on the blackboard and we’d take each symbol and apply
it to a musical phrase or a note and show how scientific formulas could be transferred
into music. These off-beat ideas make the kids more relaxed and interested,
especially in subjects that they might think are boring and not easy to be involved
in. This was the thing we were anxious to do – get them involved and
make them think, and encourage them to put their own ideas in,
to be creative in whatever way possible (Gardner, 1973: 6).
These creative ideas established Marian
McPartland as a pioneer in the use of improvisation as a teaching tool. It
may be possible that she had heard of other participatory teaching methods,
such as Dalcroze or Kodaly, but by bringing classroom subjects to life through
jazz improvisation, Marian devised her own creative methodology. Marian and
her bass player, Michael Moore, spent three months in the classrooms of schools
in the Huntington area, devoting three to five days
a week to this tuition. To enable them to commence classes at 9
a.m., Marian did not book club dates when she was concentrating
on jazz education.
Her plan was to involve the students by bringing jazz into
their day-to-day curriculum. Rather than performing in front of a class, Marian McPartland requested closer contact with the students, having lunch with them, participating musically in the curriculum:
When a typing teacher
asked her to give a talk to her class, Miss McPartland protested that she was
not a talker. A piano was produced
and Miss McPartland began playing a blues for the class, relating it to the
mechanical process. ‘It gave them the idea of how rhythmic typing could be,’
she pointed out (Wilson, 1971: 66).
Then other teachers began to ask for her.
She found herself improvising in German classes, in history classes, mathematics
classes and science classes. In 1971, with diminished funds available, Marian’s
school appearances became less frequent. However, she was given funding to
bring the trio into West Babylon Junior High School
to set up instruments in a music classroom, and period by period, classes moved
in and out to join them. Her bass player was Lyn Christie, and her drummer
Eric Nebbia. Together they experimented with an English communication class,
a history of jazz class, a musical theatre class, a poetry class, and a Spanish
class, working with the rhythms of various Latin countries and involving dance
and percussion instruments. Such experiences led Marian to express the wish
to ‘concentrate on one or two schools to see if what we do has as much value
as I think it does’ (Wilson, 1971: 66).
Her passion was to get through to children
who were labelled as backward. ‘I love to work with the little ones…especially
with the slower ones. I guess it has to do with listening. I’m trying to make
them shed their fidgeting and their fears and make them listen’ (Stewart, 1974). She saw no reason why the slower learners should be separated from so-called bright
students, and found it extremely rewarding to unlock their potential.
Prior to this, Marian
McPartland had become familiar with the work of Sylvia Ashton-Warner in New
Zealand, who used the piano to teach small children
to read and write, and to put together elements of basic grammar. Ashton-Warner’s
books gave Marian the idea to use music as an incentive to education, particularly
with children who seemed to have learning difficulties (McPartland to Douglas, 1970).
By renouncing traditional methods of music education, which
failed to engage children in participation, Marian devised her method of using
music in conjunction with other educational activities. Before long she was
visiting classrooms with a small piano, and improvising music pertinent to whatever
subject was being taught at the time. Just as Marian McPartland had instinctively improvised a blues to relate music to typing, she began thinking of other creative ideas to try in classrooms.
For
an English class, she would ‘play’ adjectives to establish a certain mood, expanding
this idea into suggesting an episode, a life situation, or a short story which
the students would then put into words. This also worked in reverse, with the students
suggesting moods and actions for the trio to create in sound.
As well as the English
language, this concept was expanded to include German and Spanish classes, art
and literature, history and geography, science, math and geology, such as enacting
an historical event through music. In a science class, different musical elements
were combined, like a chemistry experiment where elements can form a compound
substance. In algebra, combining the X and the Y theme produced something new
musically, and abstract symbols became actual sounds created in the classroom.
Marian explained her philosophy to the Long Island Press:
I want to interest them in everything through
music – ecology, plant life, treatment of animals, art, books. I like being
around kids. If you give them half a chance, give them something to be
interested in, so many of them would love to play instruments. And they have
less exposure to jazz than other types of music, and I’m trying to broaden their
knowledge (Stewart, 1974).
Through making students aware of the world
around them through jazz improvisation, Marian McPartland resisted the ‘academization’
of jazz current in the 1970s (Hennessy, 1995: 43). As a professional musician active
in the scene, aware of the spontaneity of improvisation and its time ‘feel’,
she was determined not to strip jazz of its heartbeat. A response from a Year
Nine student in Long Island
in 1973 captures the immediacy of Marian McPartland’s visit to his Junior High
School:
I went to Northport Junior High School
in Northport, Long Island, New York. I was in the ninth grade in 1973
when Marian McPartland visited our music class. I never knew how, or why, it
was arranged for her to come, but I suspect our teacher Dr. Webster had something
to do with it. At that time the only exposure I had to America's greatest art form was minimal.
My folks had some jazz/pop records, Billy Eckstein, Duke Ellington etc. Later
as a musician in High School I got totally turned on to Jazz and was fortunate
enough to hear and see in person some greats as Sarah Vaughan, Red Garland,
Charles Mingus, Phineas Newborn Jr., Diz, Miles, Basie, Bill Evans, and many
others.
I can still remember the day Marian came and played/spoke
to us. I remember she had a very friendly happy way about her that was a joy
to behold. I don’t remember what she played, but I do remember a vibrancy and
spirit that for me is achieved best through music. I consider myself to be
blessed with a sensitivity to sound and to the kind of people like Marian McPartland
who very eloquently convey their souls through the medium (Nostro, Class of 1973, Research Participant).
Gradually Marian McPartland scaled down
the number of fellow musicians, and began working by herself. Around 1973, she became more interested in taking her programs to elementary
schools, first grade and kindergarten. Jazz writer, Whitney Balliett, observed Marian in an elementary school classroom on Long Island, where Marian McPartland was painting
pianistic pictures on the theme of the weather to a group of six-year-olds. She engaged them with impressionistic swirls on the piano, then finally playing faster until the children were laughing and hopping and enjoying every moment of the experiment.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Marian
worked with six-year-olds in a classroom, portraying on the piano the characteristics
of animal pictures on the wall – a tiger, an elephant, a rabbit, a monkey, a
bird and a snake. The little ones begged her to ‘play’ a horse, and galloped
around the room until they dropped. She also improvised on elements of nature,
like wind, rain and snow, and broadened their interests with other themes. With percussion instruments
added on occasions, the children clamored to join in as Marian painted pictures
from rock tunes, blues and nursery rhymes to create rhythms:
This is just one new development of the music-in-schools
program. I believe there will be many such programs going on all over the country
to open young minds to improvisation and stimulate their curiosity in the art
of jazz itself (McPartland, 1973).
In Raleigh, Marian found two little books on jazz for children by Langston Hughes
that she believed should be in every school library – ‘Rhythm’ and ‘The First
Book Of Jazz’. Marian became more and more aware of the need for professional
musicians to lend their expertise in all music educational fields. Her concept
of the teacher as ‘another musician’ set an example for programs where the teacher
became an animated participant, inspiring the children.
In January 1974, Marian McPartland was
the catalyst for a unique nine-week pilot program in public schools in Washington, D.C. Funding for the project came from the National Endowment for the
Arts who provided $55,360, and part of the funding went to materials, part for
musicians and guest stars (including the late Duke Ellington) and part for musical
instruments so that the kids would learn by doing as well as by listening. The program
was set up by Dr. Billy Taylor, and Marian’s background and experience in presenting
jazz to children from elementary to high school level was an advantage. She worked with two local musicians in elementary schools and a high school where the student population was almost 100% black. She demonstrated what jazz is, how it is a part of their heritage, and how to improvise:
The
whole thing was a pilot for which I was encouraged to galvanize all the local
musicians into a genuine and continued interest. Well, it has been successful
and they are keeping the program going. I really feel as if we started something
good there (Stewart, 1974).
Dr. Billy Taylor was present at the initial
concert in Hawthorne School, as was White House cultural aide,
Leonard Garment, a good friend of Marian’s, who once played saxophone in Woody
Herman’s band. Janice Robinson, a 22-year-old black trombonist, launched the
concert with Herbie Hancock’s ‘Maiden Voyage’, and the youngsters hunched forward
to listen. After the concert, Billy Taylor remarked that if more youngsters were exposed to more quality music, their whole orientation would change.
If Marian was apprehensive as to how the
program would be accepted, she was reassured by the enthusiastic response of
high schoolers during an afternoon performance where she and Billy Taylor demonstrated
various styles of jazz, its origins and its relation to other forms of music
(Dreyfuss, 1974: B3).
During the nine weeks, Marian would encourage the students’ participation
with simple tunes like ‘C Jam Blues’, with a repetitive melody that’s easy to
play and simple chord changes, and then encourage some of them to improvise. ‘The culmination of the whole nine weeks was a concert at the DAR auditorium
with the Navy Band for a huge audience of kids. It was fabulous’ (Clark, 1986: 17).
Marian McPartland’s proudest moment was when Duke Ellington, in 1974
the last year of his life, performed for her black students in a Washington
public school. ‘Though weak and ill, he played nearly an hour for those kids
and they loved him,’ recalled Marian McPartland (Davis, 1975).
Marian McPartland then turned her attention
to the other end of the spectrum, interacting with aspiring musicians eager
to perform at a professional level. She collaborated again with educator Clem
De Rosa, music director at Cold Spring Harbor High School, when she appeared with his College All-Stars at New York’s Town Hall in December 1971.
In 1972,
during a six-week engagement at The Monticello in Henrietta, Marian received an invitation from Rayburn Writer, director
of jazz studies and contemporary media programs at Eastman School of Music.
This involved teaching piano improvisation twice a week to mostly classical
majors, some of whom had difficulty with playing bass lines, voicing chords,
phrasing, playing in A or D, or perhaps transforming a Chopin piece into
a slow but delightful jazz piece (Smith, 1972).
When asked about ear
training methods, Marian McPartland replied:
There’s probably no single method that applies
to everybody. I’ve worked with talented kids at [the] Eastman School that I’ll sit back and ask them to show me something. Still, there
are those who are just frozen and can’t play a thing unless they see it in front
of them (Lyons, 1983: 174).
In her music as well as in her teaching,
Marian McPartland was bridging generations, finding that being around 19- and 20-year old music students was stimulating. Discovering the music of Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker, she believed, was opening up jazz to a whole new generation.
Marian McPartland’s work with these young
musicians resulted in the group Petrus sitting in at her regular gig at The
Cookery, and appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival. This was after being groomed for
a life as professional musicians through Marian’s workshops. Marian referred
to this experience in The New York Times:
You know, those of us who have something to give
should share it with people on the way up. Improvised music, which is what
I like to call my particular form, has to continue no matter what label you
put on it and the youngsters coming up today have to be exposed to it (The New York Times,
August 5, 1973).
Marian McPartland and Clem De Rosa co-ordinated
a concert of high school bands, combos and soloists from Metropolitan New York
and Long Island for a ‘Youth And Jazz’ event at the Newport Jazz Festival in
1973. In the mid-1970s, there were approximately 170 Festivals involving as
many as 200 ensembles from elementary school to university level. Many of these
Festivals were competitive, so Marian and De Rosa worked towards non-competitive
Festivals to give young musicians exposure. Despite engagements at The Cookery
in Greenwich Village, Marian
McPartland continued during the summer months to conduct seminars, workshops
and clinics across the country, including week-long clinics at universities
in Oklahoma and Illinois.
When on tour during the seventies, Marian
followed the pattern of approaching a school to offer a trio session while doing
a concert in the area, for no remuneration. On one occasion, Marian was appearing
solo at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Orleans
as part of the Hyatt’s jazz enrichment program. This was Marian’s first performance
in the Crescent City. She had
therefore contacted educator Ellis Marsalis about her contributing to his educational program
‘Project Gifted and Talented in the Arts’. As a result, one thousand children from the Orleans
Parish Public Schools attended her concert (The Times Picayune, September 19, 1977).
In 1973, Marian made it clear that
she was on a crusade to bring jazz into schools as often as she could between
her club appearances. She wrote an article for The New York Times proclaiming
her commitment to music-in-schools programs, as they open young minds to improvisation
and stimulate their curiosity about the art of jazz itself. ‘It’s wonderful to
see the music I love and believe in being perpetuated – being carried on with
such enthusiasm, such dedication, such intensity. I believe in music as a strong
force for good, and now I know that in the future there will be good jazz and
good jazz musicians’ (McPartland, 1973).
Marian McPartland also became involved with
National Stage Band Clinics, run by Ken Norris, in the 1970s. Summer jazz programs
were held across the country, and at Utah Summer Camp in 1970 the faculty was
co-ordinated by Herb Patina. As well as Marian and her bassist, Michael Moore,
others on the faculty were Phil Wilson and John LaPorta (Woody Hermann alumni),
drummer Alan Dawson, Johnny Smith on guitar, and a guest appearance by dedicated
educator/trumpeter Clark Terry. These musicians were hired as clinicians and
teachers, often taking a lesser fee, to give classes to high school students
from different areas.
After teaching all day, the musicians would perform for
the students in the evenings. It was inspirational to perform for a very highly
motivated group of youngsters, and Marian felt the musicians played better than
they would for a nightclub audience, half of whom are not there for the music.
To gain inside knowledge of the students’ experience, Marian and Michael Moore
attended an arrangers’ course conducted by Phil Wilson, and at the end of the
week handed in an assignment with the students. Asked about her range of activities within the field of jazz education, Marian McPartland replied, ‘It's amazing – the more you do the more you can do; the busier you get, the more you seem to be able to cope with' (Gardner, 1973: 6).
This was true of her activities
following the Utah Summer Camp in August 1970. She planned to record her husband,
Jimmy McPartland, with two guitars for her Halcyon label. She had club dates
booked at The Downbeat in New York. She was enrolled for a course at New York University in Music Therapy. She was returning to England for appearances on TV, to visit her sister, and to promote her latest
album on Halcyon. As well, she had concert dates booked in Sweden. On her return, she was booked for winter concerts
in Denver and Aspen, Colorado (McPartland to Douglas, 1970).
Marian McPartland and her bass player, Michael Moore, also spent several weeks
during the 1970s at the University of Washington and
Sacramento State College. ‘I’ve never enjoyed anything so much in my life –
I’m afraid I’ll never feel the same about night clubs again!’ (McPartland, Letter to John S. Wilson, n.d.).
Marian’s plan to record her husband, Jimmy,
on the Halcyon label with two guitars did not materialize. A record date with
guitarist George Barnes was in the pipeline, but Jimmy did not feel that his 'lip' was ready. In 1973, Marian invited him instead to record a concert in Rochester,
the session resulting in the album Live At The Monticello:
If we got something, fine, and if we didn’t, we
wouldn’t use it. Some Rochester
guys recorded it and they did a beautiful job. It didn’t turn out half bad.
I don’t play authentically in Jimmy’s Chicago style but I can fit in and not sound ridiculous. I can be flexible
enough to know what I should play in his kind of band. Actually it is more
enjoyable that way than if I were trying to enforce my own harmonic ideas…I
can seem to enjoy playing his kind of music so much more now. I guess I play
progressive jazz. I was influenced by all the records I listened to - Duke
Ellington, Teddy Wilson, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson (Campbell, 1973: D26).
In her educational pursuits, Marian McPartland's knowledge of jazz history, and her ability to portray the entire spectrum of jazz from the keyboard enabled her to convey her message. Her networking with jazz
educators, such as Clem De Rosa, and her experimental approach of connecting
jazz with the school curriculum, have surely changed the direction of jazz education
by making it accessible, personal and interactive for the students she inspired.
References
Gardner, M. (1973) ‘The Jazz Journal Interview: Marian McPartland Talks To Mark Gardner’, Jazz Journal, vol.
26, no. 4, pp. 4-7
Wilson, J. S.
(1971) ‘Marian McPartland Puts Jazz To Work For LI Students’, The New York
Times, May 9, p. 88
Douglas, N. (1970) Interview of Marian McPartland, Summer Jazz Clinic, University of Utah, August
McPartland, M. (1973) ‘I Was Indignant That Rock Reigned Supreme’, The New York Times, September 23, pp. 17, 29
Stewart, P. (1974) ‘Pianist Has Made A Noteworthy Commitment’, Long Island Press, December 22
Nostro, F. (2000) 'Marian McPartland As Educator', Class of 1973, Northport Junior High School, LI, Research Participant
Wilson, J. S. (1971) Unknown title, The New York Times, May 3
Wilson, J. S. (1971) ‘McPartland Piano And All-Star Band Join At Town Hall’, The New York Times, December 16
Hennessey, Patrick D. (1995) ‘Jazz Education In The Four-Year Institution: A Comparative Study Of Selected Jazz Curricula’, Unpublished MA (Music) Dissertation, University of Hawaii
Clark, A. (1986) ‘Marian McPartland Interview’, Jazz Educators Journal, vol. 18, no. 4, April/May, pp. 16-18, 70
Smith, C. (1972) ‘Professor McP.', The Times Union, November 1
Stewart, P. (1973) ‘Peripatetic Pianist’, Long Island Press, May 6, pp. 3-4
Davis, C. (1975) ‘Marian McPartland Jazzes Up Clubs, And Classrooms Too’, People Magazine, January 13, pp. 66-67
Lyons, L. (1983) The Great Jazz Pianists, New York: Da Capo Press Inc
Unknown author (1977) ‘Jazz Concert Slated At Hyatt', The Times Picayune, September 19
Unknown author (1973) ‘A Pro Is Inspiring Gig At Guild Hall’, The New York Times, August 5
McPartland, M. Letter to John S. Wilson, n.d.
Campbell, M. (1973) ‘Interpreting Wilder’, Asbury Park Sunday Press, October 21, p. D26
