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Jazz arrived in mainland China as early as the 1920s. It has since been a popular music genre among the middle and upper classes. Similar to that in the West, jazz education in China has been increasingly formalized, with a growing number of universities and academies offering jazz degree programs or courses. Despite a few studies on jazz and its early education in China, little is known about how formal jazz education is implemented in contemporary Chinese academic settings. In the present study, we examined and contrasted jazz program policies across three higher education institutions in China wherein at each one, a specialized unit for implementing jazz education has been established. The comparison foregrounded commonalities and differences across the three programs. We also discussed how the institutions responded to the local political and economic contexts in developing their jazz programs. We have concluded by deliberating on the future of jazz education in China in relation to public acceptance of jazz and the recent development in school curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of jazz ensembles within extra-curricular instrumental music programs in secondary schools in Australia has grown exponentially in the past two decades. Despite this growth, there is a deficiency of specialist teacher training in jazz education and pedagogy in Australian tertiary institution instrumental music courses. This lack of specialist training in jazz pedagogy has left many music educators, especially early career instrumental music teachers, underprepared and underequipped to teach jazz programs successfully in their junior and secondary school settings. This article aims to synthesise and contextualise some of the key literature in jazz pedagogy and jazz ensemble rehearsal techniques for early career teachers, or those with little or no background in jazz. The topics discussed in this article include roles of instrumentation, rehearsal and performance set-ups, rehearsal techniques, the role of the jazz director, directed student listening, jazz style, language and articulation, improvisation, and repertoire. The aim is to equip instrumental music teachers with an introductory knowledge, reference to further literature, and practical examples to maximise the proficiency and potential of their jazz ensembles in junior and secondary school music programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a beginning jazz improvisation learning environment for middle school instrumentalists, including whether one of two instructional sequences of harmonic form improvisation tasks better supported four outcomes: achievement, self-assessment, self-efficacy, and motivation. Over 12 weeks, fifth- to eighth-grade instrumentalists (n = 43) studied jazz improvisation in a learning environment with four critical features: (a) forming cooperative jazz combos, (b) making jazz thinking visible, (c) encouraging specific feedback, and (d) implementing harmonic form sequencing. Quantitative data for all outcomes were collected pre-, mid-, and postinstruction. Primary findings showed: (a) a significant effect on all outcomes over time, not only for the 12-week duration of the instructional period but even in the first 6 weeks; (b) a significant interaction between assessed task (i.e., a modal- or blues-based improvisation) and achievement; (c) evidence of transfer of learning when, midinstruction, participants significantly improved at both tasks after only studying one; and (d) no significant effect according to instructional sequence of harmonic form (i.e., modal/blues vs. blues/modal). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that jazz has a male hegemonic narrative. Researchers have also found gender injustices in performance and in education. Recent research has shown that there have been pioneering female jazz musicians around through many eras, however women have traditionally been under-represented in historical jazz narratives and they remain a minority in the field of jazz. This contrasts sharply with the fact that music teaching in schools in the United Kingdom (UK) is a profession occupied predominantly by women. Jazz and improvising occupy a marginal place in the curricula in schools across all four nations in the United Kingdom (UK). Studies show that in the secondary school music curriculum there is generally a focus on technical development, musical skill building and reproduction, rather than creative activities such as improvising and composing. There are resultant tensions between the performativity and creativity agendas found in schools and issues of teacher agency, freedom and control are prominent. This mixed methods study of secondary school music teachers (classroom and instrumental) investigates their experiences, attitudes and beliefs in relation to jazz and improvising in their practice. The data show that gender is a significant factor when considering amount and type of activity, as well as confidence and anxiety in jazz and improvising. Barriers exist for women and girls in schools that need to be addressed if changes in gender participation in jazz and improvising are to happen. The study provides implications for future educational practice in order that gender inequities might be addressed.

Brad Mehldau's adaptations of pop-rock repertoire had a significant impact in contemporary jazz practices and discourses and contributed considerably to stimulate the discussion around canon and artistic value in jazz. Taking the binomials jazz/not jazz and highbrow/lowbrow as a point of departure (Levine 1988, Walser 2007, Meisel 2010, Swirski & Vanhanen 2017, Ake 2019), we analyze to what extent the process of choice of the repertoire recorded by American pianist Brad Mehldau defied stratified constructions on art in the context of the jazz milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arts and culture are increasingly acknowledged as pillars of society in which all of humanity including people who identify as’ LGBTQIA+ can contribute in 21st century society. United Nations and individual country initiatives continue to promote the notion of inclusive, egalitarian values that promote equal access and opportunity to chosen careers and passions. Jazz as an artform has evolved as a form of cultural expression, entertainment, and political metaphor, subject to societal and populist pressures that have created both a canon and popularized history. Jazz education has moved from largely informal to almost wholly formal and institutionally designed methods of learning and teaching. The jazz ensemble or stage band remains an enduring secondary education experience for most students learning jazz today. This qualitative study of music directors investigates their approaches, perspectives and concerns regarding attitudes and practices in the teaching profession, the promoting of inclusive practices, access, and equity, amidst a pervasive masculinized performance and social structure that marginalizes non-male participation. The study provides implications for how jazz education may continue to evolve in both attitude and enlightened access in the education of jazz learners.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative study examining 'real-world' jazz performance contexts within an Australian tertiary music course. Course projects were designed to offer students opportunities to gain a better understanding of the intersections of working and performing with their teachers in an improvised music ensemble. The study investigates reflection of students' experiences and perceptions of learning dispositions, identity and creative growth across a nine-month academic year. Students' individual and collective improvisational learning and development were investigated by examining perceptions and reflections upon identity making, confidence, as well as cultivation of creative voice. A framework of student reflective practice for creativity provides implications for creative ensemble approaches, strategies, goals and aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this historical study, I present the emergence and evolution of Jamey Aebersold's Play-A-Long volumes and their key role in bringing jazz improvisation to formal music education. Drawing on oral histories and using a framework from sound studies, I present chord-scales and pattern playing as Deweyan conceptual technologies that assist beginners in developing a mature technique. I recount how Aebersold learned these as a student of David Baker at Indiana University, then applied the idea through teaching improvisation with the Dorian mode over Davis's "So What." In 1967 Aebersold published volume 1, and the Play-A-Long evolved into a system over a dozen years as subsequent volumes included new scale types, like the blues scale; added idiomatic patterns; incorporated his new Scale Syllabus; and licensed standard repertoire. I then describe how these technologies imply the "soloist as such": a generic model of learning improvisation as a process of learning tunes and tasks from simple to complex around a core unity of theory and performance. This model in particular addressed beginning improvisation and the slogan "Anyone Can Improvise." Finally, I consider criticisms of the model, note that the chord-scale approach is Black music theory, and suggest future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1966, David Baker, a Black man and esteemed jazz musician and composer, created and developed the Jazz Studies program at Indiana University (IU). The purpose of this study was to investigate how David Baker came to join the faculty and created the Jazz Studies program at IU through an examination of the school's course offerings and historical context between the years 1949–1969. This time period captures when jazz was evolving from its roots as an informally learned art form into one that was taught in academic settings, as well as important evolutionary moments in jazz, specifically the transition from bebop and cool jazz through the development of hard bop, modal jazz, and Third Stream. Finally, it captures the tumultuous Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s which coincided with IU's hiring of David Baker and the school's decision to begin to include jazz courses in its curricular offerings. This examination concludes with a discussion of relevant implications for jazz and music education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of improvisation and the “Jazz Model” for Entrepreneurship as a gathering of creative minds with the goal of creating a new outcome is frequently used in the entrepreneurship literature. Especially the unique setting of a jazz jam session exemplifies a successful model of group creativity. Herzig and Baker (2014) identified seven factors that guide jam sessions and Belitski and Herzig (2018) transferred and exemplified these factors to various business entrepreneurship models. This case study traces the entrepreneurial efforts of Jamey Aebersold, David Baker, and Jerry Coker, the ABC’s of jazz education who developed the foundation for teaching materials and curricula worldwide. Furthermore, this case study demonstrates the entrepreneurial mindset of these three innovators as a result of their training in the jazz idiom and suggests strategies for entrepreneurship education.

The concept of improvisation and the "Jazz Model" for Entrepreneurship as a gathering of creative minds with the goal of creating a new outcome is frequently used in the entrepreneurship literature. Especially the unique setting of a jazz jam session exemplifies a successful model of group creativity (Herzig & Baker, 2014) with options for training towards organizational innovation. This case study traces the entrepreneurial efforts of Jamey Aebersold, David Baker, and Jerry Coker, the ABCs of jazz education, who developed the foundation for teaching materials and curricula worldwide. Furthermore, this case study documents the entrepreneurial mindset of these three innovators as a result of their improvisational training and regular participation in jazz jam session situations and thus implies strategies for teaching creative thinking techniques in entrepreneurship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The one-to-one teacher–student relationship is a common learning configuration within jazz education. However, opportunities to learn through engagement in ensemble performances and industry-level recording opportunities with esteemed jazz performers are rare classroom environments the tertiary jazz music institutions offer. This qualitative study examines 'real-world' jazz performance contexts within an Australian tertiary music course, exploring students' learning experience spanning three diverse collaborative projects. Bandura's Social Cognition Theory is utilized to elucidate an ecological system of musical development, where learning occurs in a social context within dynamic, reciprocal interactions between learners, environment and students' adaptive behaviours that are bounded by context, culture and learner history. Findings from pre- and post-participation interviews reveal student and educator perspectives of engaging in authentic experiential learning situations. A stratum of positive influences impacting students included metacognitive, behavioural, emotional affordances, as well as the cultivation of a wider social, environmental and cultural/creative confidence and an expanding collaborative community influencing individuals' learning decisions. Students and educator participants expressed professional-level expectations, real-world outcomes, and a deeper musical connection and understanding by students of the guest artist/composers' intention, musical aesthetic and expert band direction. The authors maintain that inclusion of experience-based education and embedding of authentic professional industry experience and creative music-making contexts within educational settings enhance the learning of students and potentially enculturate richer musicianship in students and their developing creative communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instrumental tuition has predominantly been conceptualized in terms of a master–apprentice model that facilitates the transmission of skills, knowledge and cultural intellect through teaching and learning. Research suggests the one-to-one tuition model needs to evolve and adapt to meet the demands of the 21st century musician. Within the jazz/improvisation lesson, the learning and teaching of improvisory ability is a complex activity where developing improvisers hone motor-specific skills, audiative ability, imaginative and creative impulses that connect and respond to strategic individual and collaborative catalysts. Observing the negotiation of learning and teaching in three lessons in improvisation between expert practitioner-educators and their students, this study reveals a cognitive apprenticeship model that can provide a framework for teachers to develop students' cognitive and meta-cognitive abilities, and understandings of expert practice. Case studies of three teacher-practitioners and their advanced students explore the "in the moment" teacher–student interactions and teaching techniques that expert improviser-educators utilize in developing mastery and expertise in their students. Teaching to an advanced improvisation student is a dynamic, fluid and reflexive interplay of pedagogical applications of modelling, scaffolding, coaching, and reflective processes. The holistic imparting of knowledge can be understood as a cognitive apprenticeship. Careful guidance by a teacher/mentor can offer the student an immersive environment that brings thinking, action and reflection to the forefront of learning. Implications are identified for more effective, collaborative and inventive ways of assisting learning and inculcating deeper understandings of factual, conceptual and problem-solving concepts that draw students into a culture of expert practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore music performance anxiety (MPA) and trait anxiety as experienced by jazz music students at the post-secondary level. MPA has been conceptualised as a painful apprehension of music performance manifesting through affective, somatic, cognitive and behavioural symptoms. Although MPA has been studied extensively with classical musicians, almost no research has investigated MPA among jazz musicians. Participants were 73 jazz music students who completed an online questionnaire assessing MPA and trait anxiety. Results suggest that jazz music students suffered from a significant level of MPA and that this was strongly related to trait anxiety. Performance settings and perceptions of the nature of stressful situations did not appear to have a significant effect on the level of MPA that was experienced. These findings indicate that MPA within the context of jazz performance is a phenomenon that needs to be addressed by future research, with a view to understanding how the experience of MPA may influence engagement with jazz studies, and how higher education jazz programmes could support students in coping with MPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The violin has been played in jazz from the beginning of the music's history, and yet it has, until relatively recently, been somewhat neglected as a significant jazz instrument in terms of both performance and education. One style of jazz in which the violin is significant is so-called 'gypsy jazz', which originated with the formation of Le Quintette du Hot-club de France in the early 1930s featuring gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli. The success of this group led to Grappelli being considered central to jazz violin and gypsy jazz, and the gypsy jazz style--initially a French phenomenon--being equated with jazz violin as the everyday aesthetic of jazz violin. The number of successful French jazz violinists following Grappelli (including Jean-Luc Ponty and Didier Lockwood) has led to the idea of a 'French school' of jazz violin, and a number of recently published jazz violin tutor books base their approach on the premise that the Grappelli swing style is central to jazz violin, despite many contemporary jazz violinists choosing to play in more modern styles. The authors critically consider the existence of a 'French school' of jazz violin and whether teaching the Grappelli style is an effective approach to jazz violin pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a 2013 post-doctoral grant funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation-FAPESP to conduct research on North American jazz education, Almir Côrtes spent several hours a week at his host institution, San Francisco State University, with Hafez Modirzadeh, Professor of Jazz and Creative Music Studies. Together, they discussed and compared improvisation pedagogies between their two institutions. The following is a summary of several months of discourse, with Modirzadeh’s critical cross-cultural positions on jazz lending to Côrtes’s own research on the teaching of musical improvisation in Brazil. Among points discussed are some of the parallels and problems of institutionalizing historical contexts of practice, and popular music in particular. What follows are their own interactive perspectives – referencing causes for the current state of teaching methods, proposing potentialities for future ones that lay ahead – always with the knowledge that through consistent dialogue, shared boundaries expand.

This article seeks to discuss approaches to instrumental practicing directed towards developing improvisation competence, by analyzing empirical data from a qualitative study on jazz students’ instrumental practicing. The concept explorational practice is derived from the theory of expansive learning, and compared against the concept deliberate practice. Findings show a variety of open-ended strategies to develop students’ improvisation competence, which are framed as explorational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to mirror a time of radical change in Swedish jazz education through perspectives formulated in the jazz journal Orkesterjournalen. During the 1980s, jazz musicians are still typically viewed as self-taught; you learn how to play jazz through listening and through playing together in contexts where fellow musicians function as informal "teachers". The growing formal jazz education is viewed with some scepticism. The emotional values of music are emphasised, rather than the intellectual ones, and warnings are issued regarding homogenisation and "broiler mentality". During the 1990s, self-regulated, curiosity-driven jazz learning is still in focus. However, musicians now also have new opportunities to profit from a long formal jazz education; in addition, an increasing number of individuals share experiences that enable comparisons between Swedish and American jazz education. Based on such experiences, a richer discussion can be conducted about, among other things, the consequences of formal jazz education with regard to tradition and individuality. During the first decade of the new millennium, a Swedish jazz educational profile is appearing more clearly, focusing on the role of personal expression in jazz education, as well as on the role of jazz education for personal development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jazz has long been recognized as a male-dominated field, with females traditionally having only limited acceptance, often in the roles of singer and pianist. Researchers have explored sources of the gender imbalance in the field of jazz and jazz education, but there is no theory or framework to organize such findings. This directed content analysis of the journal Jazz Changes, the official magazine of the International Association of Schools of Jazz published from 1994 to 2000, analyzed published answers to the following question posited by the journal editors, “Women in Jazz: Why aren’t there more women in jazz education?” Analysis suggests a model including three social-psychological theories to describe the female experience in jazz. The theories include Rosabeth Kanter’s theory of tokenism, which describes a learning environment that females might perceive or experience in jazz; Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson’s theory of stereotype threat, which offers insight into why female musicians might make a choice to not participate, or discontinue participation, in the jazz idiom; and Albert Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, which is offered as a possible guide to providing instruction in jazz that fosters female participation. These theories are offered together as a model framework for future study of both historical and present experiences in gender and jazz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical approaches to learning in practice-based jazz improvisation contexts include situated learning and ecological perspectives. This article focuses on how interest-driven, self-sustaining jazz learning activities can be matched against the results of a recent Swedish investigation based on extensive qualitative interviews with jazz musicians regarding their views on the metaphor ‘storytelling’ and its relevance in the field of jazz improvisation. In order to visualise and discuss the educational implications of the results of this study, the notions of a landscape of musical metaphor and a corresponding landscape of musical learning are presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Musicians and musical genres circulate around the world within the exponentially increasing influence of globalization. This research explores the understandings of six Greek musicians and their engagement with jazz. These musicians have complex cultural and musical identities formed by migration and nationalism that are enacted in different musical genres. The participants either play or appreciate jazz. They also play Greek traditional musical styles and a range of Western musical styles, ranging from 'classical' to rock, blues and pop. The participants are also music educators who work with students in a range of styles. Musical identity is acquired through interaction with others in their cultural group. For these musicians jazz appears to be problematic in their cultural and musical situation. It seems to be less acceptable than other music. Their insights into the tensions that surround their music making can inform others with curricular and cultural impositions on musical engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common dream among the youth is to become a successful musician. By surveying young aspiring musicians trying to enter a prestigious jazz audition, this paper examines assets and dispositions involved in the formation of a music field. In the study we build on Bourdieusian sociological theory and method in order to map out a space of jazz contesters and characterize the group(s) seeking to enter. Our findings, based on a specific multiple correspondence analysis performed on 211 applicants, suggest that the space of jazz contesters is structured by three important factors: (i) the total volume of music capital, (ii) commitment to the (professional) field of practice and (iii) the familiarity acquired through previous music socialization and training. Using clustering techniques, we further distinguish four groups among the applicants – Insiders , Outsiders , Inheritors and Underdogs – and reveal the success rate of the groups. We find that the acquisition and enactment of field-specific symbolic assets is of particular importance for elite music admissions, while at the same time the sizeable number of musically affluent candidates competing for a small number of places turns the audition into an event underscored with considerable uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an ongoing tendency, taking place in the Scandinavian countries from the late 1970s onwards, to expand the repertoires and resources of music as an educational matter, an academic field, as well as an area for support and funding from cultural authorities, organisations and institutions. Here, popular music, jazz, folk music and world music have gained considerable educational, curricular and institutional status. In this article, we will discuss how different ideas of what is considered to be genuine, original or authentic meet and break against each other in music education. Using a deconstructive methodology, our point of departure is three specific examples from earlier research in music education, on popular music and jazz education, respectively. We aim to deconstruct the different and partly contradictory concepts of authenticity that characterise the fields of music education we examine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jazz big band is a common extra-curricular musical activity in Western Australian secondary schools. Jazz big band offers important fundamentals that can help expand a student's musical understanding. However, the teaching of conventions associated with big band jazz has often been haphazard and can be daunting and frightening, especially for classically trained music teachers. In order to maximise results within extra-curricular rehearsal time constraints, this article synthesizes current literature into big band development from Australia and overseas, designed to ensure positive outcomes, especially for teachers with little or no jazz background. In order to 'break sound barriers', it is important to consider the pre-rehearsal preparation, as well as the face to face rehearsal and performance situation. The article contextualises jazz education and attendant issues in secondary schools in Western Australia before outlining current literature into strategies designed to maximise rehearsal efficiency prior to, during rehearsals and after performances. It then presents a model, based around the fundamentals of set-up, instrument roles, sound and repertoire, designed to build a motivated and musically competent jazz big band. By summarising the literature, the article ultimately aims to equip directors with the knowledge to maximise the potential of jazz big bands in secondary schools throughout Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2002, The Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music (CQCM) has maintained a partnership with Hamilton Island Enterprises (HIE). Within this partnership the Bachelor of Music (Jazz & Popular) students visit Hamilton Island (HI), an island resort located off the Australian east coast, 4-6 times annually to engage in 3-10 days of performance and educational activities. During each visit, students within the degree present daily performances in the HI's entertainment zones. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the CQCM/HIE partnership on the development of students' adjunct professional skills, working with band equipment, time management in the set-up process and interacting with venue management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thought processes of seven artist-level jazz musicians, each of whom recorded an improvised solo, were investigated. Immediately after completing their improvisations, participants listened to recordings of their playing and looked at the notation of their solos as they described in a directed interview the thinking processes that led to the realization of their improvisations. In all of the interviews, artists described making sketch plans, which outlined one or more musical features of upcoming passages. The artists also described monitoring and evaluating their own output as they performed, making judgments that often were incorporated into future planning. Four strategies used by the artists for generating the note content of the improvisations emerged from the analysis: recalling well-learned ideas from memory and inserting them into the ongoing improvisation, choosing notes based on a harmonic priority, choosing notes based on a melodic priority, and repeating material played in earlier sections of the improvisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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