April 8, 2010
School of Music celebrates two decades of jazz program with a week of performances
An harmonic convergence of sorts has led to “A Week of Jazz at the UW” April 12 to 19.
“We’d been talking for a long time about how to highlight the 20th anniversary of the Jazz Studies Program,” says Marc Seales, director. “I had a concert scheduled around the release of my new album, American Songs. We’d also been talking about trying to have [guitarist] Bill Frisell on campus for a master class, and it turned out he was available the same week. And [UW assistant professor and trumpeter] Cuong Vu was putting together a festival for the Improvised Music Project. So it all just kind of fell into place.”
The week will include:
- A faculty recital April 12 by Tom Collier, director of percussion studies, and Dan Dean, who are celebrating 45 years of making music together;
- Seales and guests performing songs from his new CD on April 13;
- A three-day live recording project, April 14 to 16, featuring Vu’s “Vu Tet” in the kickoff event for the Improvised Music Project Festival;
- Another Improvised Music Project event on April 17 featuring New York saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo performing with UW jazz students;
- An April 18 concert featuring Frisell with UW students, followed by a panel discussion with performers, educators and members of the Seattle jazz community.
Details are available at here.
The roots of jazz instruction at the UW go back much more than two decades. Trombonist Stuart Dempster, who joined the UW in 1968, was inducted this year into the Earshot Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame. William O. “Bill” Smith, who also joined the UW in the 1960s, has been called “one of the greats” by no less than Dave Brubeck. But it was only in 1990 that the UW began to offer jazz studies as a major, and Seales was hired as the first fulltime jazz instructor. Students also take courses from others in the school who are not fulltime jazz people.
Seales was joined in 2007 by Vu, whose arrival has brought new energy to the program, in Seales’ view. “When we interviewed for the position, there were many great people who applied, but we decided to hire someone who was very different from those already here,” he says. “Cuong is 15 years younger and brings a different perspective. While people of my generation were raised listening to commercial music, bebop and mainstream jazz, Cuong is steeped in avant garde, classical music and rock, among other genres. With his arrival, I see the jazz program becoming more serious and focused.”
Vu is one of the recipients of this year’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
One of Vu’s ideas was the Improvised Music Project, a registered student organization, which was created “to shape the local music culture by serving as a voice, network and source for live, spontaneous music.” The project has led to the creation of bands that play varieties of improvised music and have found venues for public performances off campus. This is the second year that the organization has staged a festival. Find more information about festival events here.
Seales always asks his students, “Who do you want in your audience? Are you playing for your parents, or for your peers?” Jazz, he says, “has gotten away from the commercial world and is in danger of becoming a museum piece. Our best students are using everything that’s available, including music that is part of the commercial world. There are so many sources now available on the Internet. They’re playing complex things, with different sounds and rhythms, drawn from a variety of sources. When I hear them, it really makes me say ‘Wow.’ The best students are better than I was at their age.”
Seales, a pianist with a long list of credits playing piano with some of the top stars of the past 20-plus years, is doing his best to bring energy and an eclectic approach to what he plays. His latest album is an amalgam of tunes, his own and others, “related to my view of American music, or at least a slice of it.” Included are his interpretation of Fire and Rain by James Taylor; Taking it to the Streets, made famous by the Doobie Brothers; and Ring of Fire, popularized by Johnny Cash. The disc also contains a Seales tune, Connected to the Blues, dedicated to John Lee Hooker, a Chicago Blues reminiscent of Muddy Waters, as well as Blue in Green by Miles Davis.
He was careful to note that the album is labeled Volume One. “I’m still working on other things” with the American Song theme, he says.
