Blog #5 The unconventional classroom

Before studying jazz in depth in this class, I definitely was under the impression that jazz was a talent that needed to be fostered outside of the traditional classroom.  Jazz as an art form requires one to do more than to simply play the right notes with the right timing.  Rather, playing jazz requires one to put his or her soul into the music, therefore taking the audience on a journey with them.  This is not necessarily a skill that can be refined in a classroom.  This skill comes only from the experience of playing for a room full of people, from playing music until you have made them all hang on your every note, and from being in the audience and being taken on another musicians journey with them.  This was definitely the case for Miles Davis when he moved to New York City to attend Juilliard. 

Right when Davis arrived in New York he began to look for the legends, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker (52).  He knew that the places he was going to gain the most knowledge were the places where these talented musicians were playing.  Additionally, Davis was unhappy trying to learn jazz in the academic setting of Juilliard (52).  While he complained that it was too “white” for him, I think that this can be expanded to mean that he was trying to learn jazz from people who had never truly played jazz.  Davis claimed that he learned more in one session at Minton’s than he would learn in two years at Juilliard (59).  Miles eventually dropped out of school and decided to spend all his time in jazz clubs playing and jamming with other jazz musicians.  I would argue that this is still a classroom in a sense, just not the traditional classroom that one generally thinks of. 

According to Bill Evans, jazz is a creative process rather than a musical style.  If we consider this to be true, than how could one learn about jazz without immersing oneself into the culture of it?  If jazz is a process, than one must become a part of this process in order to truly learn about it.  Miles Davis’ presentation of how he chose to learn to play jazz music and to be a jazz musician reaffirmed my conception that jazz is an art form that one must nurture outside of the conventional classroom and rather in a more “real-world” setting. 

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Blog #4 Communty and the Artist

The community in which one grows up can have a definite impact on an individual’s artistic expression. Conversely, individuals can have major impact on and shape the atmosphere of the community that they reside in.  Thelonious Monk is a prime example of someone who was shaped by the community in which his formative growth years took place.  On the other hand, Leimert Park is a community that was developed and shaped by the community members. 

When Thelonious Monk was a young boy he moved to San Juan Hill with his mother and sisters.  San Juan Hill was a bustling and crowded part of the city that made Thelonious tough and hard against the realities of racial tension (Kelley, 18).  San Juan Hill was extremely violent, and there were frequent riots that were only worsened by the presence of the police (Kelley, 18).  Maybe contributing to this constant tension and conflict was the fact that San Juan Hill was extremely diverse, with black people from the south, people from the British West Indies, from Cuba, South America and all over Europe.  There was an immense amount of cultural diversity that went into molding Thelonious Monk during his time on the Hill (Kelley, 18).  Despite all the conflict, San Juan Hill had a rich music scene, as the musical styles from all the cultures represented blended and coalesced (Kelley, 19).  One of Monk’s peers in from the neighborhood described San Juan Hill as a village where everyone knew each other, and recalled that everyone had an instrument (Kelley, 20).  In addition to this culturally lush community that Monk grew up in, his mother, Barbara, was very encouraging to his creative development.  She took her children to Central Park to see classical music performed, and encouraged that they sang in her home (Kelley, 22).  Monk’s musical freedom and experimental style are no doubt a product of the community that he was raised in. 

Leimert Park was a primarily white neighborhood that went through a major, and at points rough, transition to a stimulating and creative primarily black community.  When real estate discrimination laws were outlawed, black families began to move into Leimert Park, which led to riots and destruction in the city.  Then an amazing thing happened!  Galleries such as Brockman’s Gallery and creative spaces like 5^th Street Dick’s Coffeehouse started to move into the area.  These spaces created a social scene: a community.  Organizations such as World Stage have been developed in Leimert Park to continue to encourage people to express themselves in a healthy and creative way. 

While both Kelley’s biography of Thelonious Monk and the film Leimert Park show a connection between art and community, I think that this connection is slightly different in each case.  Thelonious Monk, and the musical genus that he became, is a product of the community that he grew up in.  Leimert Park is a creation of the artists and people that make up the community.  This being said, this distinction is really a continuum.  People are constantly both contributing to and being influenced by the communities in which they reside. 

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