| MURRAY: | Everyone knows who you are, sir. |
| COLLETTE: | Well, I don't know. Thank you. I'm Buddy Collette from Los Angeles and I'm a musician who does a lot of traveling these days. I'm a board member of Local 47 in Los Angeles with Mr. (Marl) Young, a board member of KLON, a jazz station in Long Beach, and a board member of the Performing Tree, which is doing a beautiful job in the schools. In fact, I will be working with the Performing Tree on Sunday to select musicians in public schools that we can train. The problem, I think, in many cases is that you find these musicians when they are 18 or 20 years old but 10 years later you can't locate them. All of them don't make it. A lot of them don't get to be Miles Davis. We lose so many. Part of that is what the Performing Tree attempts to help solve. I have something that maybe Mr. Young will read. His eyes seem to be better than mine even with these glasses. (Laughter) |
| YOUNG: | I'm Marl Young and I'm trustee and member of the Board of Directors of Local 47. I also belong to a club which gives scholarships to promising musicians. We started the scholarship program about 14 years ago. At that time we gave a total of $500 per year; we now give about $8,000 every year to promising young musicians, separating them in advanced and unadvanced categories. I would like to read Buddy Collette's statement: |
You might think from what you read in our newspapers and national magazines that jazz is enjoying a renaissance in this country. But the fact is that while jazz is enjoying renewed popularity in some quarters, the base of support necessary to ensure the future survival and growth of jazz has all but eroded.
Jazz in its purest form is rarely heard on the radio. You generally hear only the more commercially viable "fusion" music. Thus the artists who have created and developed this rich musical heritage over the past 90 years are ignored. Jazz of any kind is rarely seen on television, which is the most powerful omnipresent of all communications media. And finally, jazz is almost never taught in schools or otherwise presented to our young people. One of the results of this neglect is that, particularly in our inner-city areas, entire generations of African Americans, young and adult, have grown up virtually ignorant of our country's rich contribution to world culture, which was largely created and nurtured by their ancestors and some of their contemporaries.
What can we do to give jazz its due? Well, we can't tell the commercial media what to cover, what to write, what to play. But we certainly can help ensure that school-aged children, and by extension their parents and grandparents, are once again exposed to and taught about the "national treasure" (as defined in Congress member John Conyers' (Michigan) House Concurrent Resolution 57, 1987), which is jazz music.
For a relatively modest investment, the following things could be done:
A visual and oral history program, in which the many accomplished and legendary jazz musicians who live in the Los Angeles area could relate, in their own words and in great detail, their own life experiences: how they came to appreciate and study jazz, who influenced them, with whom they performed, where they have traveled, how their lives have been affected by their involvement in the music. These audio and video tapes could then be made available to schools, libraries and archives, radio and television stations.
Next, support could be generated for in-school concerts and clinics by jazz ensembles, in cooperation with the Music Performance Trust Fund administered by each local of the American Federation of Musicians. While these performances are free to the schools as long as no admission is charged, many schools lack even the minimal funding, staff, and facilities to present such events."
| YOUNG: | When we present these programs, we need matching funds in order to do it. Some of them just can't afford it and this must be corrected in some way. |
| MURRAY: | In-kind contributions don't count toward the matching fund? |
| YOUNG: | Not at this time. It should be matching, but some programs are doing 30 against 70. We are trying to work ... |
| MURRAY: | It has to be in money? |
| YOUNG: | It has to be in money. |
| MURRAY: | It couldn't be in services? If a musician donated his services you couldn't use that? |
| YOUNG: | No. The Musicians' Union was formed to see that musicians are paid. We want our people paid for their services. Musicians should make money for playing jazz because it's creative and something people should appreciate. |
"Additionally, curriculum materials could be developed so that the impact of such performances does not dissipate as soon as the curtain goes down. Finally, it is essential that such performances be presented on an organized and ongoing schedule, so that the music can be thoroughly explained, taught, and experienced. It would be better to do four concerts a year in a few schools than one concert every one or two years in a larger number of schools. As educators and parents begin to appreciate the value of such a program, support will grow for its expansion.
Finally, our children also need to visit our concert halls, such as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center of Los Angeles County, to see and hear more formal presentations by jazz artists which are designed specifically for their age groups. Symphony orchestras have been presenting youth concerts for years; in fact, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has one of the most comprehensive such programs in the country. Presenting jazz in a concert hall setting would have the benefits of (a) reinforcing what the children have learned through in-school presentations; (b) reinforcing the idea that concert-going is an integral part of a well-rounded education; and (c) most importantly, reinforcing the idea that jazz is a form of world culture deserving of the highest level of presentation, along with opera, ballet, choral and orchestral events.
Jazz is an integral part of world culture. Its artists are treated with awe, admiration, and respect in all other countries of the world. Unfortunately, jazz is still generally relegated to the 'back of the bus' in the country of its origin. There are many dedicated people working to change that. Official recognition and support from such bodies as the California State Legislature can do much to speed the process.
If you agree with the principles outlined here, my colleagues and I will be happy to present specific proposals and budgets for launching each of these programs. Thank you for your consideration."
| COLLETTE: | There's a lot there. I have a lot of experience teaching in schools. I was inspired as a young man, age 12, by professional musicians who came to my school--professional musicians who really knew what they were doing. They talked to us about the profession and how they had progressed as artists. Exposure to the professionals makes a big difference to young musicians. That's why I work with children today. About 10 days ago, I was at a Redding junior high school, Buckeye Junior High School (I think), where the children hadn't heard the type of jazz I play. Even so, they were excited about it, they wanted to learn, and they respected my experience as a professional jazz musician. I explained jazz to them while a local television station recorded us for their evening news. This made the experience important to the children. It was a wonderful thing. I would like to see this type of thing happening in Los Angeles. I believe radio stations are fine, but we still have a lot of people to reach. If we don't start with the youngsters, it's all over because their parents haven't been exposed to jazz either. Another problem in school music programs is that the teachers lack the professional experience necessary to really teach music and don't use jazz as a tool for this purpose. I visited a high school band class one year where the band director had no experience as a professional musician. He had the knowledge of a teacher, which a lot of us have, but you need actual professional experience to teach this stuff effectively. This particular teacher didn't want the band to play for me. He told me that the band was no good and that I should just talk about my experience in the business. I told him that it would be unfair to use the children's time with details of my 30 years' experience as a musician and that time would be better spent teaching them. In order to do that, I had to hear them play. He finally assembled the band. I tell you this story as an example of what's missing sometimes. I knew what was missing. I could see the teacher was uptight. I'm a professional musician, he knew my name, and he hears my records on the radio. But the children weren't frightened of me; they were anxious to see how I liked them. They did perform for me, but there were no dynamics. The saxophone players weren't approaching it right and weren't phrasing properly. It was very stiff--not musical at all. I worked with the players individually as much as I could and instructed them on volume and tone. We worked for about a half hour. After that they began to sound like a different band. When students are trained properly by qualified teachers, you turn out quality musicians. I believe a lot of people are not hearing jazz. Disc jockeys need to be educated. Some of them are playing too many of the CDs that are being reissued from the 1950s and 1960s. Now that's good music; I have some of that myself. But there is some music today that we should be playing. There's good current stuff going on. This doesn't mean that they should not play the old stuff, but music today should be getting its fair share too. Wynton Marsalis is beautiful. He's doing Louis Armstrong, but at the same time he's going back and forth between the old stuff and his own stuff. We really need to look at a lot of this to see how changes can be made. To show how jazz musicians don't receive their due respect, most of my buddies and friends have left Los Angeles--Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Chico Hamilton, Ernie Royal, Frank Morgan, the Cheatham's, Sweets Edison, Britt Woodman, Jerome Richardson who is from Oakland, but stayed in Los Angeles for a while, Richard Wyands, and Eric Dolphy. In a way I was happy to see them get out of there. These are fine musicians that were just sitting around in Los Angeles. I was fortunate in a way. Marl (Young) and I did studio work. I've worked on the Groucho Marx show to make a living and played jazz on the weekends. I had a family, and it provided a steady check each week. It is very difficult for talented people to make a living playing jazz. |
| MURRAY: | Why do you think that is? |
| COLLETTE: | One reason is lack of attention by the media. Name recognition is crucial to our success. It helps us tremendously. There are players who deserve some kind of recognition, but aren't getting it. Many times musicians must travel to New York or Europe to build their names. Another problem is the decline of record companies. The record companies that used to exist in Los Angeles are not there anymore. A great musician could work 22 or 25 years and die without ever being recorded. |
| MURRAY: | What do they do in New York that they don't do in Los Angeles? |
| COLLETTE: | Musicians get press support. For example, The Village, a well respected newspaper, gives musicians a lot of press coverage. You can make a name in New York. When I was with Chico Hamilton, Eric Dolphy, a keyboard player, was practicing 8 or 9 hours a day in Los Angeles. I told Chico, "we have to do something with this kid" and told Eric "you've got to go (to New York)". I drove him to the airport. A month later, he called and said, "Buddy, you've got to come here. This is where it is." So something magical happens there--they recognize talent. |
| YOUNG: | I think I can add to that. In Los Angeles, the most lucrative fields now are video tapes, motion pictures, and television film. In New York, the unions gain most of their income and work dues from live music. That's the difference there. Live music takes in about 60 to 70 percent of their income. Here, it's just the opposite. About 60, 70, 80 percent of our income comes from recorded music, video tapes, and television film. Live audiences are crucial to jazz; we must build audiences. For example, Compton school district has a fellow there named Everett Turner who is a member of our musicians' union and a very fine jazz musician as well as a fine classical musician. The Compton Unified School District has hired him to interview parents to see if their children are interested in music. If they are interested, Compton loans them instruments. Now this can be enhanced. If he were allowed to teach the basic rudiments of jazz with the classical music, by the time the children get to high school they will have a well-rounded background in music that they can take to a higher level. We had a program in Los Angeles called "Jazz, the People's Music in the High Schools" which was sponsored by the Music Performance Trust Fund. We presented all the great jazz artists and I was the commentator for that. It was very successful. This is the type of thing we really need. We are willing to cooperate with the legislature if there is funding to see that this jazz program is disseminated all over the school system. We should start doing the same thing in the Los Angeles school system and the Sacramento school system and the San Francisco school system. First, find out if kids want to learn music, be sure that they have the instruments, and then inculcate them into the idioms that are indigenous to this country. It's shameful that the very music that was created in this country is not accepted by its own people the way it is in other parts of the world. |
| MURRAY: | Why have we lost the jazz audience in the Los Angeles area? |
| YOUNG: | I disagree with those [Vercelli and Corriveau] who say our audience should come from those who listen to public radio or watch public television ... |
| MURRAY: | The live performances--why have we lost the audience in Los Angeles? |
| YOUNG: | Because the audience has not been educated. We need to start from the very beginning--from the grammar schools, then move to junior high schools and the high schools. We must build audiences. When we build the kids as an audience, we build their parents. We have to start doing this in a very organized way by cooperation among all the facets of our world. We need the legislature, we need the city councils ... |
| MURRAY: | We had the audience at one time. I remember when there must have been ten jazz clubs in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. We had more jazz clubs in Los Angeles than they had in New York. Now we have one. Why did that happen? |
| YOUNG: | Rock and roll came in ... |
| MURRAY: | Competition? |
| YOUNG: | Not only that, rock and roll musicians would almost pay the club owner to perform. They wanted exposure for agents and record companies. They used it as a way of displaying their talent. |
| COLLETTE: | Showcase? |
| YOUNG: | Yes, showcase. We (the Union) used to have nine business representatives for about 400 or 500 clubs. We now have one business agent because the audience is not there. That's why we must start building this audience from a young age. We've got to instill this in then ... |
| MURRAY: | Do you have any idea why that audience is no longer there? Did they die? Is that what happened? |
| YOUNG: | When budgets are cut from education, what is normally done? Music programs are cut. |
| MURRAY: | We're talking about audiences. We had ten jazz clubs and now we don't have any? |
| COLLETTE: | Can I answer that? I think we're on the point here. You are right, the music changes. The rock, the fusion, and as you can see the movies ... |
| MURRAY: | So people who used to go to jazz clubs now go where? |
| YOUNG: | They don't go anywhere ... |
| COLLETTE: | No, they don't go anywhere ... |
| MURRAY: | They go to Michael Jackson concerts ... |
| COLLETTE: | Jazz was put away. I have children and grandchildren and saw their taste in music change (now they're back into jazz). At one period, they were playing what all their friends were playing at school--the hit records, the fusion, the rock and roll. That was the direction music was taking. You're right, Mr. Murray, the jazz clubs are gone, but the fact remains that even when they were there jazz musicians were struggling for survival, especially in Los Angeles. While I was in Redding, a young lady who was a journalist told me after one of my performances that she was a converted jazz fan. Exposure is everything, but for audience building it also takes an intimate experience with it at an early age. |
| MURRAY: | I think i understand Mr. Young's point. I go to jazz performances now and there's no one in the room under 40 years old. |
| YOUNG: | The people that listen to Duke Ellington and Jimmie Lunceford grew up listening to Jimmie Lunceford. The people who go to Michael Jackson concerts are your daughter and my granddaughter. That's what they grew up on. We want them to grow up on something other than that. One way to do it is through the school system and by the cooperation of all the government instrumentalities. |
| MINICUCCI: | I agree. I'd like to make a point. I showed Mr. Young a bill that Senator Mello introduced, SB 1050 in 1987, which would have created a program using the Music Trust Funds. The bill passed the legislature and was vetoed by governor Deukmejian, but should be reintroduced. I am certainly happy to talk to the Senator again... |
| YOUNG: | Well, our board and our president will give you 150 percent cooperation. |
| MINICUCCI: | That's where the bill came from--a request from the Musicians' Union. Senator Mello is a member of the Union. I think Mr. Young is entirely right that it takes an active effort on the part of the legislature and other agencies to do something. It's not passively going to happen by itself. |
| YOUNG: | Our jazz musicians are not just inculcated with jazz. When I did the Lucille Ball show, I used such jazz artists as Buddy Collette, Marshall Royal, Marilyn Moore from the Duke Ellington band, John Duke from the Count Basie band, Joe Comfort who did all the recordings, Nat Cole, John Collins from the Nat Cole trio. These people read that music as well as they read jazz. They are well rounded, educated musicians. They should be allowed to play the music that is dear to them which is jazz. There should be an audience for it and we've got to build that audience. |
| CARRILLO: | There use to be competitions between high school jazz bands in California. Do you see any of that going on anymore? |
| COLLETTE: | The Performing Tree still does a little of that. They've changed it a little bit. Last year they brought in people like myself to work with the kids before the main contest. They called them "Battle of the Bands" competitions where the top band wins some type of award. I'm sure these competitions are being cut back though. |
| YOUNG: | One encouraging aspect of it is that there are good jazz bands in the colleges.- But there again you are on the higher level. We want to have good bands in the high schools. We want kids starting earlier. When I went to grammar school in Chicago, we had bands made up of our peers who were 13 and 14 years old. They weren't the greatest, but they were being trained in something and could later become professional musicians. You've got to start at the
beginning. What does the Catholic Church say? Give me the child till he's six years old and we will have him for the rest of his life. Give us musicians who are 4, 5, and 6 years old, allow us to enhance that knowledge in junior high, high school, and junior college and we can turn out accomplished jazz musicians who will bring with them audiences. But if you don't do that, we can't build audiences. |
| MURRAY: | I want to commend you both because I am familiar with your work. I remember when I was in high school--at Jefferson High School--the Union would provide performances about once a month. I am pleased that you (Buddy Collette) still put on these type of shows; I certainly want to commend you for that. In answer to the question of what is going on in the schools, I think our next panel will include people involved in school programs. |
| YOUNG: | I want to make one more comment before we go. I was on the California Arts Council for six and a half years. Jazz was always an afterthought to the Council when they handed out grants. Pardon my expression... But I raised hell about it. Paul (Minicucci) can verify this. After awhile they began to set aside some money for jazz because they knew if they didn't, they were going to have to hear from me--and I'm pretty loud. I want to thank paul (Minicucci). He and I have known each other for years. He called me to participate in this hearing. |
| COLLETTE: | I just want to say one thing. It's good to come here and know that we are doing something about it because it has always been one of my pet peeves. The youngsters are going to miss out on this valuable stuff. We are losing the great players and we need the youngsters to replace them. It has to start early. My success can be credited to early musical exposure. It's the key to everything. It happened to me and I see it happening for other youngsters in my tour. |
| YOUNG: | I'm retired now, but I want to spend the rest of my life helping in this effort. |
| MURRAY: | Maybe you can give me some advice now. My children, they're young adults now, have some musical background--they took music lessons and played in bands. They grew up in a household of dedicated jazz fans--my wife and I. That's the only kind of music we had in the house, but they don't dig jazz today. They're into rock and some of this other stuff. It's an effort to educate them. |
| YOUNG: | What did they study? I will bet you that most people when they start children studying music keep them restricted to Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc. My family--my mother and my older brothers who raised me--encouraged me to play everything. No matter what it was. So I played jazz at night for a living, but I practiced classical music at home. Your children should have studied music with a segment of their education devoted to jazz. I'll bet that if their music education had included both jazz and classical, they would have developed a lifelong interest for jazz based on that exposure. |
| MURRAY: | They don't have an interest for classical music either. (laughter) |
| COLLETTE: | That may be true, but the point remains: People are not experiencing jazz because it's not available to them. |