NIU to host Jazz at Lincoln Center's
sixth annual Band Director Academy

by Mark McGowan

NIU will host the first three days of the Jazz at Lincoln Center's sixth annual Band Director Academy from Thursday, July 7, through Saturday, July 9.

The topic: rhythm section technique.

Twenty-five band directors from middle schools and high schools are registered. Ron Carter, director of jazz studies at NIU, is director of the academy.

“The rhythm section is always the most problematic section, because it's the heart and soul. They play all the time, and they have to be consistent and tight. It's essential that band directors know how to teach the rhythm section,” said Jonas Cartano, an associate in the education department of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

“We want to give the band directors some tools to take into the classroom. We're trying to provide another avenue to learn about jazz in a structured environment.”

Taught by some of the foremost jazz educators in the country, the academy emphasizes hands-on learning and a focus on concepts and techniques immediately applicable in the classroom. It offers the opportunity for individual attention and active participation and free educational materials and music.

The intensive sessions of professional enrichment integrate jazz performance, history, pedagogy and discussion, including:

• Bass, drum, guitar and piano pedagogy.
• Rhythm section in a big band setting with student demonstration band.
• Instrument interactions: drums/bass, piano/bass/drums, piano/bass and full rhythm section.
• Big band-swing style and straight eighth-note style.
• Roundtable discussions.

Optional graduate credit is available through NIU for both sessions, the second of which is scheduled from Thursday, July 14, through Saturday, July 16, in New York City. The later session, focused on teaching improvisation, takes place at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Joining Carter on the faculty for the DeKalb academy are drummer Dana Hall, assistant professor of jazz at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; guitarist Rick Haydon, professor of music at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville; pianist Reginald Thomas, associate professor of music at SIU-E; and bassist Rodney Whitaker, director of jazz studies at Michigan State University.

The academy's roots are found in Jazz at Lincoln Center's “Essentially Ellington” program, Cartano said.

Each year, Essentially Ellington creates new transcriptions of six Duke Ellington songs and sends them to more than 1,000 high schools. Each school's jazz band has the opportunity to record the charts and send the disc to New York for free feedback; some will receive an invitation to compete in the Big Apple.

“We learned there are a lot of great bands out there, but that those band directors typically had jazz experience or were players themselves. A lot of directors didn't have that background, or that much experience. We realized there was a definite need for this,” Cartano said.

“It is America's art form. There's so much history attached to it,” he added. “In terms of pop genres, and rhythm and blues and soul music, there's a lot of jazz influence. It's good for students to know about that in order to appreciate what's out there now.”

6-20-05