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Nightclubbing in the Classroom
David Liebman believes that educational programs have saved jazz. He comes to Berklee in June to run an annual event that helps prove his theory.
By Rob Hochschild
Berklee.edu Editor
(June 15, 2001)
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David Liebman |
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Saxophonist and educator David Liebman has a lot on his mind. Just ask him a few quick questions; you won't have to wait long for the torrent of words to spill out. Liebman's words-per-minute ratio is always high, but it spikes sharply when he's talking about jazz and jazz education, two subjects he feels so passionately about that he founded a globe-spanning organization — the International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ) — several years ago to promote them.
"The classroom, whether we like it or not, has become the substitute for the jazz club," Liebman said during a phone call from his home in the Pocono Mountains town of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. "We do not have the jazz club six nights a week, four weeks in a row, guys hanging out and then playing until six in the morning. That's where the innovations took place . . . people sitting around a club and playing and hearing and experimenting. Now we have the equivalent of that in the academy and the conservatory where you have a three-o'clock-in-the-afternoon ensemble under flourescent lights. Thank God it's that. (Jazz) could have disappeared if not for that."
Doing his part to keep jazz from vanishing, Liebman formed IASJ in 1989 to bring together jazz students and teachers from around the world to study and play together. Fifty student musicians and at least two dozen teachers from 20 countries will participate in the 12th annual IASJ meeting, to be held this year at Berklee, June 17-23.
Beyond producing a quarterly newsletter and facilitating networking activities between jazz musicians around the world, the focus of the IASJ calendar year is the annual meeting, which in past years has been held in such nations as Italy, Ireland, and Germany. As always, the central goal of the meeting is to bring together students of varying cultural backgrounds and put them together in ensembles that rehearse every day before giving concerts at the end of the week. When they're not in combo rehearsals, the students attend lectures, instrumental master classes, and jam sessions in a local club. The event also gives teachers an opportunity to meet and brainstorm on educational approaches.
After an opening ceremony in Berklee's David Friend Recital Hall on June 17, the meeting will quickly move onto the music as students take turns stepping on stage in what Liebman called a "forced jam session." The two-and-a-half-hour performance will act as a long rotating audition, as Liebman and his teaching staff assess the abilities of each player and determine the personnel of six combos.
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Liebman (far left) performs with Miles Davis in a 1973 concert. |
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"Less than two hours after they play for us, they're in the ensemble rooms meeting the other musicians," said Liebman, who carries the title of IASJ artistic director. "The idea is to get the students to interact and to get it together with very little input from teachers. I tell them, 'You are now in a professional situation with six or seven musicians you do not know, probably do not speak the same language with and your job is to put a performance together in four or five days.'"
The 2001 meeting presents one additional major challenge for students. They will be asked to organize for themselves a recording session, taking advantage of Berklee's state-of-the-art recording facilities. The players, who generally use their own original compositions, will have to agree not only on what tunes each combo will perform, but what tunes to record. It's all part of Liebman's plan to thrust them into a situation that emulates a professional gig as much as possible. At the end of the week, each student will leave Boston with his or her work on CD.
"I tell them that their job is to put the music on," Liebman said. 'And if you don't like the piano player, that's your problem, because you've got to make it happen.' This is the way it is in the real world. The musical results at the end of the week are always amazing. They're all at a very high level, and it's unbelievable what they do considering they didn't know each other at the beginning of the week."
The real world of music is very familiar to the 54-year-old Liebman, who has maintained a professional career for more than 30 years. The New York native fell in love with jazz as a teenager while watching Coltrane perform in Manhattan jazz clubs. After graduating from college he quickly ascended to the highest levels of the jazz world, landing extended gigs in the bands of Miles Davis and former John Coltrane drummer Elvin Jones. He later led groups of his own featuring bandmates like John Scofield, Al Foster, and Kenny Kirkland.
In the 1980s, Liebman began teaching jazz around the world. As he met musicians at schools in disparate locales, he observed a disconnection between far-flung educators.
"I realized that a lot of them were not aware of each other, especially in Europe," Liebman said. "It seemed a shame. I could see that there would be great unity if we could start a network of people doing the same things in different places."
But while there is overlap in some of the educational strategies, the young musicians who are selected to participate in the IASJ meeting typically represent a wide range of jazz styles.
"There's all kinds of influences from different countries," Liebman said. "They may use a folk tune from Sweden. You may hear an Israeli tune. The word jazz has become a giant umbrella that includes so many different kinds of improvised music."
Visitors to the Boston area will get to hear what Liebman means for themselves on June 22 and 23, when the six IASJ combos perform for the general public in concerts at the Berklee Performance Center. Liebman says the high quality of the performances stems from the unusual nature of the program and its participants.
"You're talking about a pretty elite, high-class group of individuals who have a high level of intelligence and sensitivity," Liebman said. "Knowing that they enjoy the music enough to come to this meeting and study it with 50 others . . . makes it a pretty deep event."
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IASJ Ensembles
Six student IASJ ensembles performed over two nights at the Berklee Performance Center in June 2001. Video of the concerts is available for on-demand viewing. |
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