However, as fabulous as all of those people are I do not think we have ever had a better team of trumpet faculty than the six people who have worked together the past few years. Everyone here is a true team player. Each of these guys plays well, and some are absolutely stunning trumpet players. Each person is articulate about what they do and dedicated to teaching. Each person knows and fulfills their particular role in the overall scheme of things. They are all such beautiful open people. That’s not a bonus. That is why everything else is so good.

I am truly blessed to be working with these folks!

Anyway, one of the things we all hate (and one of the things that students are inevitably interested in) is the eternal questions about what horns and mouthpieces we all play. I thought that posting this info here might solve this problem.

Students are almost always surprised that none of us play freakishly expensive “super horns” or $300 mouthpieces. Frankly, in my experience most of the people who own those kinds of horns and mouthpieces are hobbyists and not professional jazz musicians. The pros grab basic gear and go off to practice!

Anyway, here is a list of the horns and mouthpieces played by the trumpet faculty at our US workshops.

Pat Harbison Bach Strad 37 bell & a Bach 3C
Jim Ketch Selmer Paris 80J & a Bach 5C
Jim Rotondi Selmer Paris 80J & aGreg Black custom mouthpiece
Bob Symer Bach Strad 37 bell & a Bach 3C
Steve Thomas Yamaha “Z” & a Schilke 14B
Scott Wendholt Bach Strad w/reverse leadpipe 72 bell (NOT 72*) & a Holton Collegiate mouthpiece

(Note: I am often ably assisted by some wonderful UK-based players such as Henry Lowther and Steve Waterman when we do our jazz course in London. I do not know their gear, although I think Henry is playing an Eclipse trumpet.)

In my experience… over 20 years as a college jazz educator and 30 years as a clinician… EVERY group of students I have dealt with is remarkably diverse when it comes to learning music. This is true even if they are all 18 year-old white kids from the American midwest. In many ways it is just as challenging to deal with individual students and their differing learning styles in a group setting as it is to deal with people who are from different age groups, nationalities, etc. The desire to play jazz is a motivating and unifying factor that goes a long way toward leveling cultural differences. However, the fact is that some people learn better by listening and imitation, some by using theory as a way to direct their first steps, etc. The final goal is always the same, but the easiest and most effective path of access can vary widely from person to person…

…At Aebersold camps we have every student take a brief playing audition and a written jazz theory test first thing. Combo groups are then organized according to the students’ level of performing experience/ability. The same is true of the theory classes. Therefore, musically everyone is on the same relative level. Some may have more technique, or better theoretical knowledge, or a better concept of musical style, but when you average everything out you have a group of players that are on more or less the same level. The same is true of the trumpet master classes. For most of the master class sessions we divide the students into groups of 6-8 with relatively comparable skill levels. This still makes for an interesting blend of young players and older folks, etc., but at least the skill levels are compatible.

With the combo the key is to choose the repertoire wisely. With some groups I find that it is possible to cover a lot of material in a week’s time. With less experienced groups it is usually better to cover fewer tunes and allow the students a chance to acquire a comfort level with each piece we play. Early in the week I try to join the group and play the melodies with them and take the first solo. I find that most people play better when they have a strong model to set the tone. I also find that inexperienced rhythm sections tend to come together more quickly if the soloist is contributing a solid sense of time and style and is making clear and concise musical statements. In this context I don’t always play solos that are like I would play in a professional performance setting. I try to model what the members of the group need to hear. This often means playing more simply and very clearly compared to my normal style. Sometimes I find that I like my playing better when I am following this simpler approach.

With the theory/improvisation classes I tend to teach on two levels. I explain everything theoretically and show how a concept, chord, or scale might be applied in the context of one or more tunes. I also demonstrate the sound of every theoretical concept I present by playing it at the piano, devising drill type exercises that apply the concept to the chord progression of a tune using patterns, and improvise several demonstration examples on trumpet using the concept under consideration.

I believe that knowing the arithmetic of theory is pretty useless without being connected to the sound generated by the concept. I also have found that some people (with different learning styles) learn better from the aural and some learn better from the theoretical. Regardless, the goal is for theory, aural skills, and technique to all become equal partners. They need to be so thoroughly mastered and internalized that they are virtually transparent and at the bidding of the musical imagination.

How this applies to other types of diversity in a group of learners will be the subject of part 4.

Pat

The age range of the combo members I worked with each of these weeks ranged from teenagers (some as young as 13) to people in their 60s. Last week in my trumpet master class at the UK workshop I had 11 students ranging from an 11 year-old and a 13 year-old to a handful of retirees. I find this kind of diversity both fascinating and challenging to me, the teacher…

…But it isn’t just age where the diversity manifests. Last week my combo members were from Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, and various parts of the UK. It included a magistrate, a law professor, a chest surgeon, and a member of the British military along with students, teachers, and full-time musicians. For one week these people are meeting on common ground, united by a shared passion and a mutual challenge… learning to make music by improvising together.

At one of the workshops in Louisville my drummer was a sociologist by profession. After one afternoon session we chatted about the unique nature of the social and cultural interactions he was experiencing and observing at the workshop. He agreed with my perception that there is nothing else quite like the dynamic created by Jamey and his events. In that student band he was working with a 40-something IT professional from the east coast, a 20ish “southern belle” from Tennessee, and a few high school and even middle school students. Somehow, in the context of the combo… and even in their interaction outside of rehearsals, it felt like a peer group.

In sociology and in education there is a great deal of emphasis on the benefits of diversity of all sorts. There is a lot of value placed on inter-generational learning activities. There is value attached to working in teams and learning in groups. However, when I have experienced or observed these sorts of concepts pursued or artificially created in more formal educational or institutional environments the interactions seem superficial, contrived, and generally less than satisfying. This is true whether one is dealing with a University, K-12 school, or a public service institution. However, somehow at jazz camp these elements come together in an effective way. Amazingly, this occurs without self-consciousness and without feeling contrived.

Go to the lunchroom at an Aebersold workshop and you will see teenagers sitting with people old enough to be their grand parents. They’ll be doing their theory homework together, trying to unlock the mysteries of the altered dominant chord or flipping out at their recent mutual discovery of the music of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. I have never heard of anything like this. People who seem so different meet on identical footing as they confront similar challenges.

To be continued…

Pat

Rebecca Robbins August 9 column was entitled, “At 40-something, she rediscovered her inner band geek.” The column spoke of how Robbins rediscovered the joy of making music after leaving her clarinet in the case for over two decades. The opening paragraph was where she had me…

“After my first law firm hired me, one of the partners confided that they liked lawyers who had played on a sports team… because it indicated a certain level of discipline, teamwork and focus. While I was lacking in the athletic department (see my earlier column about Title IX), I did have experience that my prospective employers deemed just as valuable: I was a musician. I had learned about hard work and daily practice. I had learned when it was appropriate to be a soloist and when it was important to blend within the group. I could handle the pressure of public performance. I attribute the real development of these career-enhancing skills not so much to my undergraduate music training at Indiana University, but to an earlier institution: my high school band.”….

…Robbins is right. Musicians develop all of those skills and so many more. People who learn to make music learn to work independently and in teams. They learn to accept a role for the overall good. They learn to listen, concentrate for extended periods of time, work diligently at tasks that sometimes push their abilities to the limit, defer gratification until the hard work is complete…

However, there are even more skills to be learned (and in my opinion more gratification to be had) as one learns to improvise. A developing jazz improviser learns to blend the rational mind and intuition. They learn to assess a musical situation and turn on a dime. They learn to invent and execute simultaneously. They acquire an entire musical language, including common turns of phrase, idioms, dialect, etc. Then they aspire to make personal statements using that language and the lore and heritage of that language in the present moment.

When it turns out well there is possibly no more gratifying experience in all the arts… for either the musician or the listener. When it turns out not so well… we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and try again.

I have just returned from London, where I taught and played as a faculty member at the third and final week of Jamey Aebersold’s Summer Jazz Workshops. The UK edition of Aebersold’s Jazz School is organized and sponsored by Charles Alexander and his company, Jazzwise, which also publishes the UK’s finest jazz magazine.

This was my 30th year teaching at the Aebersold Workshops. One thing that I have noticed over the years is that there are increasing numbers of adults of all ages who participate as students in these workshops. This is a point I would like to dwell on next time as I continue this topic.

I appreciate your feedback and dialogue.

Pat