Columbia Jazz in the News

What I Learned in School: Jazz Becomes Part of the Foundation of Columbia University (JAZZIZ October 2002)

Jazz At Columbia: Columbia Jazz Ensemble (Columbia Magazine, Fall 2003)

Interview with Chris Washburne (JAZZIZ October 2002)

Coltrane, Davis, Parker Come to Ferris Booth Commons
Revived Jazz Night Turns Lerner Into Free, All-Ages Jazz Club Thursday Nights; ‘Jam Session’ Open to All Columbia Musicians (Columbia Spectator, Oct. 28, 2005)

The following article, "What I Learned in School: Jazz Becomes Part of the Foundation of Columbia University," by Larry Blumenfeld, appeared in JAZZIZ magazine's October 2002 issue.

A SUMMER AGO, I heard pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Max Roach perform in duet at Columbia University's campus. I looked up at the stone face of the university's Butler Library, behind the makeshift stage, and scanned the names of the great thinkers inscribed: Plato. Sophocles. Aristotle. Monk?

Not exactly. No one has etched the name of the jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk above the library's pillars. Not yet, anyway. Then again, somebody did endow the Louis Armstrong Professorship, a recent outgrowth of the university's 4-year-old Center for Jazz Studies. Jazz has earned institutional acceptance during the past 20 years and has crept into the core curriculum of many centers of higher learning, even one so august as Columbia.

Jazz was never far from mind on this campus. Harlem is a short wak from the Uptown campus. Decades ago, several clubs near campus--the West End on Broadway and Mikell's on Amsterdam Avenue, for instance--booked top-name artists. WKCR-FM, the campus station, has long boasted the most progressive jazz programming in New York. Phil Schaap's "Birdflight" program on the station probably introduced more New Yorkers to the music of Charlie Parker than did the Birdland club in the 1940s.

But, as I found during a year on fellowship at the university, jazz has worked its way into the course offerings and the consciousness of this Ivy League school in interesting and interdisciplinary ways--all of which comment on the changing identity of jazz within our culture.

The most obvious expression of this interest is the Center for Jazz Studies, which is directed by Robert O'Meally, a professor in the English Department. In the mid-1990s, O'Meally wanted to explore the cross-disciplinary manifestations of jazz by gathering intellectuals for regular discussions. He applied for and received funding from the Ford Foundation and began a series of Saturday morning "conversations" as he called them. "We evolved into a pattern of academic papers in the morning, and then, in the afternoons, we'd be visited by a musician for an informal conversation," O'Meally explained recently at the Center's tiny office in the philosophy building. Over the years, the visiting musicians have included Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, and Randy Weston.

Eventually, when the funding ran out, O'Meally looked to Columbia for more support. The university declined, but offered to work with him to craft a more expansive vision. Thus, the Center was born and now boasts a small staff, an endowed faculty position, a growing library, and numerous study and performance programs. The Center has hosted a wide variety of lectures, films, and discussions, includinga visit from director Ken Burns two years ago to screen parts of his PBS documentary.

"The Center represents an effort to establish jazz studies as a new discipline," O'Meally said,, "one that has connections to music, literature, history, and a number of other fields."

That was certainly the case in "The World of Thelonious Monk," a fall seminar taught by Robin D. G. Kelley. A specialist in literary and political history and the outspoken author of several books, Kelley was the first person to be named to the Armstron chair (which will be a one-year, rotating appointment). At the beginning of the semester, he instructed the class: "We are particularly interested in how Monk has been 'constructed' by critics, fans, writers, visual artists, the music industry, the media, and others, and how Monk himself shaped his public image." The small class was a mixture of political science and English-lit grad students, musicians, and the odd writer. On occasion, Kelley would bring in a videotape of Monk in performance. Ond day, he shared a rare audiotape of the pianist playing a Chopin étude. From time to time, a poet friend of Kelley's would sit in, or an older man, a friend of Monk's.

"My goal in that class," Kelley explained to me over coffee, "is to see Monk in many lights: as a musician, as a musicologist, as a literary figure, as a political figure--all of those things--because social and political history is mixed in with the music." In another, larger lecture class, "Jazz and the Political Imagination," Kelley considered jazz's meanings. "Why do people debate and fight about the meaning of jazz?" he asked the class during one session. "Why is it that, in the 1920s, jazz was seen as necessarily connected to Africa? It's not just about the actual rhythms; it's not just about the music. It was about an imagination of Africanism and sexuality, about primitivism, and things like that."

Some students in Chris Washburne's jazz-history class or in his "Popular Musics of the Carribean" seminar might have recognized the teacher from the trombone section of pianist Eddie Palmieri's band. Or they may have caught Washburne leading his Latin-jazz group SYOTOS through a set at Smoke, a club just off campus. Washburne earned his Ph.D. in music at Columbia, while also working his way through the Latin-jazz ranks as a musician. He thinks that having these dual perspectives is an advantage; he can inject a dose of day-to-day reality into the course offerings whenever he wishes.

Some students recognized Peter Tosh's "Legalize It," a Jamaican reggae song about marijuana, blasting from the stereo as they entered the first session of Washburne's Carribean music class. But their giggles quickly subsided, as the semester turned out to be a long and detailed history of pan-Caribbean styles of music.

"I thought of this music as dance music and foreign music," one undergraduate woman told me at semester's end. "But now I understand it more as political music, social music. And I see how close it is to American music in so many ways."

Steven Feld, who recently joined Columbia's music department, is best known for his work as an ethonmusicologist. He is, coincedentally, also a trombonist. "I want to put jazz in a global perspective at Columbia," he said shortly after arriving at the university. "I want to see universities approach jazz from a multidisciplinary point of view--history, literature, sociology, music. Those of us in the 'world music' area can contribute in a couple of ways: helping to show how jazz relates to other systems of improvisation that have developed in human history; helping to show how jazz has spread from North America to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia; and how it has been in the center of numerous fusions and creative experiments. In other words, I want us to present jazz as an expansive and expanding music with global reach and global power."

While Columbia's jazz scholars often cite the work of earlier generations of thinkers, they also pose fresh questions. Kelley, for instance, would like to see more attention given to the study of gender as it applies to jazz. "It's much more than just the presence of women," he says. "It's about masculinity and femininity. Why is jazz's story always a heroic, masculine one?" Washburne thinks that the story of Latin jazz has been marginalized and misunderstood in terms of the development of jazz.

O'Meally enjoys the diversity of opinions and outlooks among those teaching jazz at Columbia. "It mirrors the jazz community where everyone does not agree and everyone does not sound the same," he says. "Just because we have brought jazz into this type of an academic setting does not mean that we seek to teach it exactly the same way as other subjects. It demands a different approach." This semester, critic Stanley Crouch is serving in the Armstrong chair, and his approach is sure to contrast with Kelley's curriculum.

There is one ironic fact taht lurks behind all this academic enterprise: Few of Columbia's students actually listen to jazz. In that light, Washburne sees his role in almost evangelical terms. "I'm in a classroom with 135 students," he says. "Most of them are non-musicians right now. I have a captive audience but I also have a huge responsibility. In many ways, I'm the first link to this new audience. The future of jazz, in some way, rests on these people. And it's my responsibility to present it in such a way that students can relate it to their own lives."

Kelley sees some students absorbing the ideas, but not the music. "Some younger students are so wedded to hip-hop that they want everything to relate to hip-hop," he says. "They refuse to consider this music on its own terms."

Still, the growth and the diversity of these courses--and the fact that they draw healthy enrollments--reflect jazz's power and reach as an academic offering. it's been more than a decade since jazz was accepted by academia as worthy of study alongside the Western classical canon. Now, it is being understood increasingly in broader terms that are essential to the mission of an American university.

Larry Blumenfeld is editor-at-large of JAZZIZ. He was a National Arts Journalism Program Fellow at Columbia through June 2002.

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Columbia Jazz Ensemble Columbia Magazine, Fall 2003

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon on upper Broadway, but at Smoke, the jazz club, the house was packed, and the crowd was warm. Between the final note of "The Soulful Mr. Timmons" and a round of thunderous applause, a lone voice called out, "That was sweet. Real sweet!" The piece, a tribute by jazz pianist and longtime jazz educator James Willeams to the '60s Blue Note artist Bobby Timmons, launched a set that would run for another two and a half hours.

Such grooves are typical for the Columbia Jazz Ensemble, nine undergraduate and graduate students directed by Assistant Professor Chris Washburne '99GSAS, but tonight also promised something new. Billed as "Jazz Meets Hip-Hop," the show included guest vocalist Akil Dasan '03CC, who delivered a jazz-inspired hip-hop message with his original composition "You So Fly," and David Gudis '03CC, who displayed his human beat-box virtuosity on another tune. Ensemble composers showcased new work as well. Bassist Paul Steinbeck, a second-year doctoral candidate in music theory and a Chicago native, offered his composition "Wadada" honoring Wadada Leo Smith, an early member of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a school and workshop founded in 1963. [For footage from this concert, click here]

Washburne, a trombonist who has toured with Tito Puente '99HON, Eddie Palmieri, and Gloria Estefan, among others, is currently working to take the ensemble on tour in Europe. He talks to his students at length about what it's like to perform here and abroad. "The first thing I tell them each morning is how much money I made the night before--they're astounded by how little it is," he laughs.

The ensemble's gig at Smoke was made possible through the efforts of Columbia's Center for Jazz Studies. Founded by Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature Robert O'Meally in 1999 with the help of the Music Department and the financial backing of the Louis Armstrong Fund for Education, the Center has expanded to offer 12 classes, attended by one out of eight students in Columbia College as well as by students in other schools within the University. The enrollment for Washburne's jazz course is one of the largest in the music department's history, with 225 students. During a lecture last spring, he darted from one end of the room to the other, playing various recorded versions of the Cuban classic "The Peanut Vendor," and explaining how Louis Armstrong reinterpreted it in the late 1920's. Armstron didn't know Spanish; when he came to the word for peanut, "mani," the master improviser substituted the name "Marie" and scatted his way through the rest.

On most Sunday nights, the professor can be found at Smoke, playing with his Latin jazz band, SYOTOS (for See You On The Other Side), and his students are more than likely either playing with him or listening in the audience. "In addition to nurturing more jazz musicians, we're hoping to help develop a future jazz fan base" he explains.

Ensemble members are hooked on Washburne's enthusiasm and candor, and they're unafraid of his exacting attention to craft or the work he demands of them. "Chris expects us to be professionals and treats us in a like manner," says guitarist Benjamin Fried-Cassorla '04CC. "I realized that one day when we'd read a chart down perfectly, hitting all the notes. But he reminded us that we hadn't yet addressed the dynamic markings or articulations--a whole other level of music-making.

--Urania Mylonas

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Build It, and They Will Come

Interview with Chris Washburne, JAZZIZ October 2002

Last year, Chris Washburne set up a jazz ensemble within Columbia University's music department, the first time that had ever been done officially. Here are some thoughts on the group.

How did the Columbia Jazz Ensemble get started?

I went to the Columbia administration and said, "Look, there's been a constant and growing interest in jazz at this university, but in terms of the structure of the music department and our music perfromance programs, there has been very little focused on jazz. At the same time, there had always been students that are good jazz musicians. They never really got to use that in school; they'd get it in the streets. Let's include the piece that's missing--the training that so many students are doing outside of school--and bring it in as part of the curriculum.

Was this a new idea?

Columbia has had an ensemble--a student club--that's run by students. They hired [trumpeter and arranger] Don Sickler to coach them. But I wanted to start something formal within the music department.

Did you get much resistance from the administration?

They were a bit reluctant. But numbers talk, you know. And when the administration sees 150 students registered for a jazz-survey course, they know that something is up. So they said, "OK, let's try it." Now, getting that endorsement, that sponsorship of the music department, is a really big thing--it leads to getting instruments, course credits, practice rooms...funding.

How did you set up the ensemble?

We held auditions. They were extremely competitive. Some of the musicians were playing professionally already. Peter Cincotti, who was only a freshman, was the youngest musician to headline at the Algonquin Room. He has a contract with Concord Records. Still, most were not professionals. I selected the best musicians I could ifnd, which ended up being an octet: two vocalists, a trombonist, a saxophonist, and piano, bass and drums. They were from all over the university. I think there were a few music students, some engineering students. Players just came out of the woodwork.

So, this was a class, for credit. What was involved?

Well, we rehearsed every Friday. I assembled a book of mostly straightahead tunes, gathering arrangements mostly from my colleagues who are arrangers--trumpeter Brian Lynch, pianist Renee Rosnes, others. I used some of my arrangements too. And I wanted to draw on my experience as a professional musician. I wanted this to be a working band, and not only to play for Columbia events. I made an agreemet with Smoke, a club I've played fairly often. The ensemble played gigs during the year and got paid. The gigs went well Occasionally, I would sit in with the band. But I wanted the learning experience to be about more than just playing the music. So I would rotate leaders for each gig. A different musicians would have to organize things, call tunes, do all the things a leader does. There's a lot more to leading a band than just what happens on the bandstand, you know. And I wanted them to learn that too.

How were the results?

I honestly think the Columbia administration was shocked at the level of musicianship and the level of professionalism. I know some of the students were shocked. But I wasn't. I knew these musicians were around, itching to play for real.

--Larry Blumenfeld

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Coltrane, Davis, Parker Come to Ferris Booth Commons
Revived Jazz Night Turns Lerner Into Free, All-Ages Jazz Club Thursday Nights; ‘Jam Session’ Open to All Columbia Musicians
By Bryan Miltenberg
Columbia Daily Spectator
October 28, 2005

Soon, Miles Davis and bad sushi will be closer to each other than ever before.
Students previously limited to off-campus bars and clubs for hearing and performing jazz music now have the chance to do so every week right here between Broadway and Amsterdam at Ferris Booth Commons as part of a revived “Jazz Night” program, which began Thursday last week.
Jazz Night is the crystallization of what many see as a surge in popularity of jazz music at Columbia, both for performers and listeners.
According to organizers, a small student jazz band will perform under the stairwell in Ferris Booth every Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The first hour will be a closed performance, but during the second hour, the band will open up to other student-musicians to sit in for an open “jam session”—the kind students outside of the jazz department can usually only encounter at places like Smoke and other downtown clubs.
A number of student jazz fans gathered last Thursday to take in the largely unadvertised first performance, while the usual dinner crowd at Ferris Booth looked on.
“It’s great. Instead of going to Smoke and paying every week I can come here. I’ll definitely come again,” said Akshay Rao, CC ’06.
Another “jazz-head,” Gene Kogan, SEAS ’08, said, “As a jazz fan, I really appreciate any effort to bring [jazz] onto campus. There’s definitely a lack of it.”
But many diners were indifferent to the entertainment.
“I’m just not really into jazz. It’s not exactly a big deal for me,” said Shaw Chen, CC ’09. Zach Lipton, CC ’07, is responsible for reviving the once-popular program, which was discontinued several years ago as a result of waning interest.
“A couple weeks ago, a buddy mentioned something about a weekly jazz night at Columbia in the past,” Lipton said. “I immediately found out who to talk to and we set it all up within a week.”
The goal of the program, Lipton said, is “not only to bring live music to campus but to get musicians that don’t have a place to play involved.” He mentioned how difficult it can be for student musicians to find gigs at clubs in the city.
Jazz Night is also part of a concerted effort to provide students a venue to see jazz without a steep cover charge or a 21-plus age requirement, both of which are hard to avoid at clubs in Manhattan.
“That’s really an important issue here,” said Chris Washburne, professor of jazz studies, who founded the jazz studies program at Columbia and has been involved in both the original and current Jazz Night programs. “Students are on a limited budget and need a place where they can go to see jazz. A jazz concert can be a unique and enriching experience,” he said.
Although attendance at the first group’s event was low, Lipton said student interest in jazz seems to be at an all-time high.
“Even compared to just last year, I could say that jazz at Columbia is definitely on the way up.”
He also noted that most changes have taken place outside of official classes offered by the Music Department.
“In terms of official activities, it’s still the same. But outside of the department, student activity is way up. A lot of our sessions run late into the night.”
Washburne, an accomplished jazz player in his own right, however, has also noticed an increase in participation in the department.
“I started the jazz program four years ago with eight students. We are now up to 56. In any one year, one-sixth to one-eighth of the student body is enrolled in a jazz class in some form,” he said. Moreover, he said that students who first start seeing performances for class, “are continuing to see jazz shows and remain in contact after the classes are over and even as alumni.”

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