0:04

23 years ago this month , the National

0:06

Museum of American History in Washington

0:08

created JAM as an acronym

0:11

that stands for Jazz Appreciation Month

0:13

. Ut Tyler connects with School of

0:15

Performing Arts Interim Director , dr

0:17

Sarah Roberts , to find out why she

0:19

celebrates it every month of

0:21

every year . How come ?

0:23

Because jazz is America's music

0:25

. We have to celebrate it all the time

0:27

because it's truly ours . It's our American

0:30

art form .

0:30

That . It is Now when UT Tyler Radio

0:33

revamped its programming this spring , we

0:35

added 19 hours of jazz

0:37

and someone asked me why jazz ? So

0:39

I gave them your cell phone number , is that

0:41

?

0:41

okay , that's why it's been ringing off the hook

0:43

.

0:45

But when people ask that or say , why this big

0:47

focus on jazz ?

0:48

Because Because if we

0:50

don't talk about it and support it , we're not continuing

0:53

the tradition and we have to

0:55

keep it alive . And regardless of whether

0:57

you're a jazz performer or you're

0:59

listening , or maybe you don't even know what

1:01

jazz is , it's our responsibility to

1:03

keep this American art form alive

1:06

, and the only way that we can do that is

1:08

continue to train students

1:10

to play it , continue to make it popular

1:13

and available in any

1:15

means necessary on the radio , for example

1:18

, and continue to program concerts

1:20

that feature jazz and all

1:22

of the facets of jazz .

1:24

Now I want to talk about the various programs that you

1:26

have going on this month here at UT Tyler , but

1:29

let's step back a little bit and talk about jazz . It

1:31

is arguably one of the most influential and

1:34

meaningful contributions to American life

1:36

by African Americans to our culture

1:38

. It has an extraordinary

1:40

heritage and history heritage

1:49

and history .

1:49

It definitely does it , you know , really came from this place of merging cultures and

1:51

merging just different ways of life

1:53

. You know , there's no pinpoint

1:56

of we can say on this day jazz

1:58

started . But if you think back to

2:00

the late 1800s

2:04

, early 1900s , you know

2:06

, especially in the South , especially

2:08

New Orleans , it's this melting pot of cultures

2:10

. In New Orleans there were six opera

2:12

houses in the early 1900s Six

2:15

, that's incredible . And

2:17

you know , jazz came out of

2:19

this melding of all of these cultures

2:21

and it has its influences in

2:23

African music , in Latin

2:25

music and what was happening here

2:28

in our country and it kind of took

2:30

all of these different elements and put

2:33

them together . But

2:35

even more so it was

2:37

this music that was heavily

2:39

started and influenced by non-trained

2:41

musicians that were taking

2:44

the elements from their cultures that

2:46

they knew and putting them together

2:48

.

2:48

So we can look at the blues as being one of those

2:50

first genres , starting

2:53

with field hollers and

2:56

gospel music , and all of that put together .

2:58

And then we see that transition

3:00

into Dixieland

3:02

and early jazz where the horn

3:04

players are trying to play their instruments

3:07

like old blues musicians

3:09

, with how they would , you know

3:11

, use their voices and play notes

3:13

that are in between the pitches

3:15

and slide into them and make guttural

3:17

sounds and really change . The first

3:20

jazz record , 1917, . It

3:22

was recorded by the original Dixieland

3:25

jazz band and

3:27

it livery stable blues

3:29

is one side of the record

3:31

and then there's another tune on the other side

3:33

, three minutes on each side , right and

3:36

records . You know those round discs ?

3:38

Oh , yes , exactly . And

3:40

the old ones , the 78s , were like a quarter of an

3:42

inch thick .

3:43

They were huge yeah , that

3:45

sound of that record

3:47

was unlike anything that had been being

3:50

played on the radio waves

3:52

of that time . You

3:55

know , you think of traditional American

3:57

folk song , that's pretty much what

4:00

was on the sound waves , on the airwaves

4:02

. And when they released livery stable

4:04

blues , it totally changed

4:06

what our entire population

4:09

then was listening to . That had

4:11

a clarinet that was trying to kind

4:14

of be like a crow and crowing

4:16

and playing obligato lines

4:18

, a trumpet that was playing the melody

4:20

and a trombone that was doing

4:24

all these like low slides , kind of like

4:26

mooing like a cow , because

4:28

they were trying to sound like a stable and

4:30

the tempo was peppy , it was upbeat

4:33

. So if you compare that to American

4:35

folk music , this changed

4:38

kind of what everybody was listening

4:41

to and the fact that radio was unifying

4:43

our country . Now jazz

4:46

just started to take hold but

4:48

depending on where you're at in the country

4:50

, you also have , you know , all these different cultures

4:53

influencing that as well . So you know , going

4:55

back to blues , we could look at all

4:57

different centers in our country

4:59

, the Delta blues .

5:00

Delta blues , chicago blues , yeah , exactly

5:03

.

5:03

And jazz kind of did that same

5:05

thing based on the players . So if

5:07

we look at swing music , for example , it

5:10

moved . Jazz moved up the Mississippi

5:12

river , so we have like a Kansas city

5:15

swing , chicago swing . Then it moves

5:17

over to New York . That's different

5:19

. It finally reaches the West

5:21

Coast and we get kind of the West Coast vibe

5:23

. So I think it's really interesting

5:26

to then look at all these different

5:28

areas in the country and how

5:30

the music articulates those

5:32

different areas and those cultures and

5:34

the musics of the

5:37

population .

5:38

I hadn't thought about it specifically in that way

5:40

, but certainly with blues I'm more

5:42

familiar with that , probably , than I am jazz , but

5:44

knowing that there is I mean there is Delta

5:47

Blues , chicago Blues , bb

5:49

King's Blues Club in St Louis

5:51

I mean the way the influence

5:53

on rock and roll country was a

5:55

big part in all of that here . One of the

5:57

great country albums , interestingly enough

5:59

, was Ray Charles , who was arguably

6:02

quite a jazz musician jazz and

6:04

blues musician . But

6:06

I digress . Let's go back . I

6:09

mentioned earlier that the National Museum of

6:11

American History created jam and this

6:13

year they're honoring Duke Ellington , a

6:15

Washington DC native . His parents were

6:17

both pianists and this

6:19

would have been his 125th birthday . His

6:22

was one of the most influential big bands

6:24

and his work inspired generations of

6:26

jazz musicians . Do

6:28

you love that big band sound and do you try

6:30

to recreate it in some of the performances we

6:32

do here at UT Tyler ?

6:34

Definitely . I'm

6:36

so glad you brought up Duke Ellington . He is not just so

6:38

influential in jazz but in composition

6:41

as well . He's one of our most

6:43

influential composers , not just

6:45

for jazz but orchestra and other American

6:48

music , especially of his

6:50

time . He was a very prolific

6:52

composer . But it's funny you mentioned

6:54

that because we're actually playing an

6:57

Ellington chart on our next concert

6:59

with our jazz ensemble and it's

7:01

featuring one of our trombonists who's graduating

7:03

this year . It's a really great , really

7:06

great work and so we've been studying

7:08

that band sound and how

7:10

to achieve sounding like Duke

7:12

Ellington . And it's really funny when you , if

7:15

you get a chance to look at his original manuscripts

7:17

and there's some , some different places where you can

7:19

see those in different libraries

7:22

across the country he didn't write

7:24

in the top of his parts Trumpet

7:26

1 or Alto Sax

7:28

2 , typical labelings

7:30

of the parts he wrote for the musicians

7:32

that were in his band and he thought about what

7:35

each musician could do . So , case in

7:37

point , Harry

7:39

Carney was a Barry player

7:41

in his band and he had a particular

7:43

sound and a particular

7:45

way that he would play and how he would use his

7:47

vibrato , and so he would write parts particularly

7:50

for him , would play and how he would use his vibrato

7:52

, and so he would write parts particularly for him .

7:57

Or Cootie Williams was that's his nickname , but he was a trumpet player

7:59

and he did a lot of different sounds with mutes and plungers and things like that

8:01

.

8:01

It was wah-wah before wah-wah , it was wah-wah

8:04

exactly , and so he wrote

8:06

on the part for Cootie . There's actually a ballad

8:08

for Cootie , but

8:10

it's really interesting from

8:12

a compositional standpoint that he took

8:14

the time to understand his players

8:17

, understand what they could

8:19

do on the instrument and then utilize that

8:21

as a way of composing

8:23

, rather than you know . Sometimes

8:26

maybe we compose something for ourself and

8:28

we don't think about who's actually going to be playing

8:30

it and how it might sound .

8:32

I was thinking about . What was the

8:34

? It was an Academy Award winning documentary

8:37

in the 70s from

8:39

Mao to Mozart we used

8:41

to have . Perlman went and visited these Chinese

8:43

kids . They're now embracing Western music after it had been

8:45

taken out , and the kids are playing

8:47

it note for note , and he grabs

8:50

the violin . No , it's not da-da-da , it's

8:52

da-da-da , da-da-da , da-da-da

8:55

. And these kids' eyes are just huge

8:57

because , yeah , it's the same music

8:59

on the same sheet . But he had this understanding

9:02

and brought this incredible element

9:04

to it .

9:04

Well , it's funny you say that I've had that experience

9:06

before when I was in grad school . Experience before

9:09

, when I was in grad school , there was a group of us , a

9:11

little jazz combo , and we traveled to China

9:13

and one of the things that we did

9:15

was working with this school , teaching

9:18

them how to put the jazz

9:20

inflections into their repertoire and how

9:22

to actually play the part

9:24

, and none of us

9:26

spoke Chinese . I take that back . There was one

9:28

of us you spoke music . We

9:31

spoke music and so we would play and then they would try and imitate

9:33

and you know , it was a really

9:35

, really meaningful and

9:37

cool trip to see how

9:40

they approached it differently than

9:42

knowing . It's like learning a language you

9:44

know and so you can learn

9:46

French from a textbook , but if you go to Paris

9:48

you're going to be immersed in it and it's

9:50

kind of that same idea .

9:52

But if you're American , they'll still hate you . Yeah , true

9:54

it

9:56

just goes with the territory . Tell

9:59

us about some of the upcoming events related to

10:01

Jazz Month here at UT Tyler .

10:03

Sure . So we have our Swoop Jazz

10:05

Collective , which is our ambassador jazz

10:08

combo . They're performing all

10:10

over for a lot of different events

10:13

. I don't think people are asking them

10:15

because they know that it's Jazz Appreciation

10:17

Month , but they have a lot of performances

10:19

coming up , some with the city

10:22

, some just at private events

10:24

, some on campus for different

10:26

events Patriot Premiere and things like

10:28

that . So that's really exciting . And then

10:30

, of course , we have our concerts that

10:32

are happening with our jazz

10:35

combo and then also our jazz ensembles

10:37

, and those are towards

10:39

the end of the month . Just , you

10:41

know , trying to celebrate

10:43

and program as much diverse

10:46

music as we can and

10:48

really celebrate , show the

10:51

range of jazz

10:53

. I think sometimes people will

10:55

classify one

10:57

area as jazz and it might be the area

11:00

that they know , for example , big band swing

11:02

, and so with our Jazz Ensemble

11:04

, one right now , some of the tunes

11:06

that we've programmed are very

11:08

different and a couple are pretty modern

11:10

to

11:13

show . We have the Duke Ellington

11:15

tune that I mentioned earlier , and then we have

11:17

a piece by Maria Schneider , who is a

11:19

jazz composer that

11:22

lives in New York and writes very modern

11:24

colors for the jazz ensemble

11:26

, and a lot of the saxophones will double on

11:29

flute and clarinet , and

11:31

you know she's mixing with timbres , and so

11:33

it's kind of cool to program both of

11:35

those composers on one concert to see

11:37

how far we've come .

11:39

Wow , that's amazing . Now , last

11:42

summer your department at UT Tyler sponsored

11:45

jazz camps , brass camps , drum

11:47

camps . Are you going to do all of that again this summer

11:49

?

11:49

Oh , definitely . We are gearing up for our

11:51

camp season happening in June

11:53

and so we have brass camp , camp and Jazz Camp happening

11:56

. I believe it's the third week of June

11:58

and then , of course , jazz Camp . It's our seventh

12:00

summer for Jazz Camp , june 24th

12:02

through the 28th , I believe

12:04

, and I'm so excited

12:07

. We are very close to announcing

12:09

our guest artists and

12:11

I won't give away the name , but I will tell

12:14

you what instrument this person plays

12:16

. They're a trumpet player , so this

12:18

year is a trumpet guest artist . They

12:20

are from New York and they currently

12:22

are playing on the Saturday Night Live

12:25

band .

12:26

And that's all I'm going to say , but follow

12:28

our socials because , we're about ready to announce

12:30

it . Speaking of socials and ways

12:32

in which to get information about what you're doing . There

12:35

are so many events coming up this month . We didn't want

12:37

to pinpoint it , to put too fine a

12:39

point on it , so we could be able to hear more

12:41

about this later on . Where can folks go

12:43

to learn about what kinds of things you've got planned

12:45

for the music department ?

12:47

Sure , april is the busiest

12:49

month , probably that we

12:52

have all year . Some nights we even

12:54

have two shows a night . So they can

12:56

find out information at uttyleredu

12:58

slash music . Go to our performance calendar

13:01

. Everything is right there . There's only

13:03

one event that I know of that there are

13:05

tickets and those are $10 each , but

13:07

everything else is free , open to the public

13:10

, and we hope to see a lot of people

13:12

there .

13:13

Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio connects

13:15

with Dr Sarah Roberts , Interim Director

13:17

for the University School of Performing Arts

13:19

. For UT Tyler Radio News

13:21

, I'm Mike Lantis .