Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Timeline of jazz education

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Non-academic

  • ca. 1890: Jenkins Orphanage Bands. The Rev. Daniel Joseph Jenkins established an orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina.
  • 1890s: Alpha Cottage School An orphanage in Kingston, Jamaica offering a music programme.
  • No date: Colored Waifs Home for Boys (see Louis Armstrong).
  • No date: Jane Addams's Hull House, Chicago (see Benny Goodman).
  • 1916: Major N. Clark Smith taught at Lincoln High School, Kansas City. From 1922 he taught at Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago.
  • 1917: Industrial High School in Birmingham, Alabama. Fess (John T.) Watley offered extracurricular marching and concert bands, and the Jazz Demons in 1922.
  • 1924: Under the direction of Volney Cyrus Barcus (1903–1990), then a student, the Southern Methodist University Band introduced dixieland jazz to the football field on September 27, 1924, during a game against the University of North Texas in Denton.
  • 1927: Jimmie Lunceford organised a jazz band at Manassa High School, Memphis, known as the Chickasaw Syncopators.
  • 1930s: The Bama State Collegians, a student jazz orchestra was founded in the 1930s at Alabama State University and was organized by Len Bowden and Fess Whatley. They were directed by Tommy Stewart and Erskine Hawkins.
  • 1931: Capt. Walter Dyett produced many well-known jazz musicians at Wendell Phillips High School and from 1935 at DuSable High School.
  • ca. 1935: Samuel R. Browne taught music at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles.
  • ca. 1940: Prairie View Co-eds flourished as a poplular all-female band.
  • 1957: Lenox School of Jazz: Summer jazz school in Massachusetts founded.
  • 1959: Stan Kenton, in conjunction with National Stage Band Clinics founder Ken Morris start the first long running summer jazz camp, later to be renamed The Stan Kenton Summer Clinics. This camp featured the whole Stan Kenton Orchestra, plus other well known jazz educators on the faculty. It continued until Stan's passing in 1979.
  • 1964: Jazzmobile, Inc., is founded in 1964 by Daphne Arnstein, an arts patron and founder of the Harlem Cultural Council and Dr. William "Billy" Taylor.
  • 1967: Stan Kenton participation at Tanglewood Education Symposium for the first time addresses validity and perpetuation of American jazz education programs in school band programs.
  • 1968: Music Educators National Conference (MENC) establish the National Association of Jazz Educators (NAJE) at annual conference in Seattle. Based in Manhattan, Kansas, the organization was renamed the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) in 1989. It went bankrupt in 2008.
  • 2000s: World Heart Beat Music Academy is a music academy in the UK with a strong jazz course
  • 2008: The Jazz Education Network was formed. This international nonprofit organization seeks to advance jazz education, promote performance and develop new audiences. With members in 23 countries, every U.S. State, and 7 Canadian provinces, the organization hosts an annual conference and provides scholarships and other programs to help its mission.
  • US primary & secondary education

  • 1939: Glenn Earl Brown (1914–1965), a 1936 graduate of Ithaca College School of Music, introduced stage bands to Long Beach, New York, public schools. Brown had been, for more than 14 years, a marimba soloist with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra. He is the father of Raymond Harry Brown (jazz trumpeter and educator) and Stephen Charles Brown (jazz guitarist and educator).
  • International higher education

  • 1928: Bernhard Sekles, at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, launched the first curricular jazz program in the world. He did it under heavy criticism from throughout Germany. The courses were headed by Mátyás Seiber. A recording of the jazz band from 1931 can be heard on German Radio archives. Both Sekles and Seiber were Jewish and the Nazis stopped the program in 1933. The program was restarted in 1976 under the direction of Albert Mangelsdorff.
  • 1965: Leeds College of Music offered one of the first jazz courses in Europe.
  • 1974: Banff School of Fine Arts: Oscar Peterson and Phil Nimmons set up the Jazz Workshop.
  • 1981: McGill University (Schulich School of Music) becomes the first university in Canada to offer a BMus degree in jazz performance.
  • 1982: American School of Modern Music of Paris: Jazz courses started by Stephen Carbonara.
  • 1984: Prince Claus Conservatoire, Groningen, Netherlands, launches a jazz department.
  • 1986: Darius Brubeck establishes first jazz program in Africa at University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.
  • 1998: Denny Euprasert establishes first jazz program at Mahidol University in Thailand.
  • 2011: Tom Smith establishes first university jazz program in Mainland China at Ningbo University.
  • US higher education

  • 1932: Percy Grainger, a student at the Hoch Conservatory (1895-1900), became Dean of Music at New York University, and underscored his reputation as an experimenter by putting jazz on the syllabus and inviting Duke Ellington as a guest lecturer.
  • 1941: New School of Social Research in New York was the first school in the world U.S. to offer jazz history courses.
  • 1945: Lawrence Berk founded the Schillinger House of Music in Boston. Berk changed the name to Berklee School of Music in 1954. The school granted its first bachelor's degrees in 1966. In 1973 Berklee's name was changed to Berklee College of Music.
  • 1945: Westlake College of Music, in Hollywood, California, is founded by Alvin L. Learned.
  • 1947: The University of North Texas was the first university in the world to offer a degree in Jazz Studies: Major in "Dance Band" or dance music degree.
  • 1950s: Over 30 colleges and universities add jazz courses to their curriculum.
  • 1952: The Institute of Jazz Studies was founded by Marshall Stearns. It is the largest and most comprehensive library and archive of jazz and jazz-related materials in the world.
  • 1959: Notre Dame Collegiate Jazz Festival became the first collegiate jazz festival in the Midwestern United States.
  • 1972: Only 15 U.S. institutions of higher learning offer a degree in jazz studies; by 1982 this number had increased to 72.
  • 1975: University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band, under direction of Leon Breeden, became first collegiate ensemble to receive Grammy nomination status.
  • 1986: The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music is founded by David Levy and Arnie Lawerence.
  • 2009: University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band, under direction of Steve Wiest, receives sixth Grammy nomination.
  • References

    Timeline of jazz education Wikipedia