| HARDIMAN: | I'm David Hardiman, Director of Jazz Studies at City College of San Francisco where I've taught since 1974. I am also a former president of the Bay Area Jazz Society. I have a big band--the San Francisco Allstar Big Band--and I also have my own small band. So I'm a performing artist as well as a full-time teacher who has taught music at the elementary through the college levels for well over 30 years. I've watched the growth and development of jazz from the point of view of a young person who started playing the trumpet at 8 years old. While I had opportunities to study music, jazz was not taught at that time. I wasn't exposed to jazz until I reached high school in Indianapolis, Indiana which generally has a superior music program than what I found in California when I first arrived in 1971. California is lacking in music education in general, not just jazz. Our weak economy has been the major cause for cutbacks in the arts. Of course, the arts are generally the first to go, especially instrumental music. This has affected jazz the most. We are also dealing with a social condition as well as an economic one. For example, the first thing I ask my students is "what is jazz?". Many of them think of it as old people's music or black people's music. |
| MURRAY: | That's what my children say. |
| HARDIMAN: | Yes. If you ask one hundred people of different ages and ethnic backgrounds from different cross sections of the country that same question, they would give you a lot of definitions of jazz--dixieland or swing or bebop or funky or
avant garde, etc. That's part of the problem. Jazz is confused in the minds of the general public. They don't know what it is. When jazz was most popular, particularly during the swing era, it was like a participating sport. People could dance, they could enjoy the music. That's why people today like rhythm and blues and rock music, and unfortunately, it is also the reason people think jazz is too intellectual and foreign. In the Berkeley school system, for example, where I taught in 1971, elementary school children were taught to improvise and play jazz. This jazz education continued in junior high and high school. Today, Berkeley students participate in the Monterey Jazz Festival and are winning special honors there as well as Reno and other places. Everyone is amazed. I recently judged a high school music competition at Sonoma State, and the Berkeley High School bands were generally far superior to the others. This can be attributed to their background, education, interest, and also community support. |
| MURRAY: | Do you think we're doing all we can do or enough in terms of jazz education at the postsecondary level? |
| HARDIMAN: | Definitely not. |
| MURRAY: | What could we be doing that we are not already doing? |
| HARDIMAN: | The Legislature could ensure that there are music programs at all levels of education and that jazz is taught as part of the early-elementary curriculum as well as available in the colleges. One problem is that children are not exposed to jazz early enough. Early education is crucial. Whatever happens to the students musically before they reach college determines their success. If they have progressed to the college level, they will enhance those abilities in college and should be ready to move into the so-called professional jazz world after graduation. Jazz courses at the college or university level have only been offered within the last 10 to 20 years at most. When I attended Indiana University, which was between 1955 and 1959, there were no jazz classes at all. Shortly after I graduated, maybe about 4 or 5 years later, Jerry Coker, Buddy Baker, and now David Baker (present Director of Jazz Studies at Indiana University) were brought in to teach jazz. That university now has one of the top jazz programs in the country, and as a forerunner, it inspired other universities and colleges to set up jazz programs. Today, at least one jazz class, perhaps more, is offered at different colleges and universities. Another problem is at the curriculum level. Today's music instructors are not required to study jazz, unless they choose to take it as an elective. When these teachers try to teach jazz they are very limited and have no real background or interest. |
| MURRAY: | Was it ever the case that California music instructors had jazz backgrounds? |
| HARDIMAN: | Definitely not. |
| MURRAY: | So that aspect has not changed? |
| HARDIMAN: | No. It has not changed; I think it's improving, but it has a long way to go. |
| MURRAY: | But there are some examples of outstanding programs, are there not? |
| HARDIMAN: | Of course. |
| MURRAY: | California State, Fullerton, for example, certainly has an outstanding band. I've heard them on ... |
| HARDIMAN: | In Southern California, musicians are being developed on a very high level so that they can go out and perform professionally. In Los Angeles, a limited number of former students get opportunities to play in recording studios, for movies, and for commercial music productions. But what happens to the rest of those students once they matriculate and graduate? A lot of them are lost, they find no jobs, they find no opportunities to continue performing. When you think of it we're graduating thousands of young musicians every year and they have no where to go. This is our new generation. Each year it continues. Another problem is attitudes at the university level--as well as our society--as to what is to be considered classical music. Hardly anyone in the United States would consider Duke Ellington on the same level as Beethoven. Yet and still we know that Ellington is one of the greatest composers of the 20th century and also one of the greatest composers of jazz, composing well over 2,000 songs. So we are dealing with attitudes about this music which has to do with racial attitudes and racism--from slavery days to present time. Jazz was invented during slavery times with spirituals, blues, work songs, field hollers and cries. All of that happened... |
| MURRAY: | Do you think that attitude would also apply to Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey ... |
| HARDIMAN: | Definitely. Benny Goodman is jewish ... |
| MURRAY: | ... As white musicians playing black music? |
| HARDIMAN: | Right, and if it hadn't been for Benny Goodman, there may not have been much integration. He hired Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, and Billie Holiday. He was one of the few to break the ice and integrate. If you look at the jazz groups today as well as commercial groups, you still find all white bands and all black bands. There are hardly any latinos or asians involved. Minorities, generally speaking, are being pushed down and pushed aside and are not able to preserve their heritage because they lack economic power and because of racial attitudes. |
| MURRAY: | How do we account for the lack of interest in jazz among blacks, especially among younger blacks? |
| HARDIMAN: | When commercial stations keep pushing Michael Jackson at you and you see him being elevated like a saint or someone who is superpowered ... |
| MURRAY: | Well, when you make $35 million a year, you are a superpower... (LAUGHTER) |
| HARDIMAN: | But we also have many superstars of jazz. A lot of them are dead now, but there are new ones and some of them are making it, like Wynton Marsalis. Marsalis is making it because they opened the doors and let him in on the classical side, but he amazed people by doing both classical and jazz. |
| MURRAY: | Classical music is not that commercially viable, at least that's my understanding. |
| HARDIMAN: | You're right. Classical music is in trouble too. |
| MURRAY: | I don't think there was ever a time it supported itself. Was there? |
| HARDIMAN: | More or less. |
| MURRAY: | It appears that jazz is rejected by white people because it's black, and I assume it's not rejected by black people because it is black. However, I have attended jazz presentations for 45 years or so. Back then a sizable portion of the audience was black, but I have seen that-continually go down to where we are today--to about less than 10 percent of jazz audiences. Why is that? |
| HARDIMAN: | Someone mentioned earlier that more than 90 percent of the jazz audience is white. Generally speaking, as a race from slavery all the way up to the present time, black people's folk music has been blues--which eventually evolved into rhythm and blues, which eventually evolved into rock and roll. It comes back to where people's heads are at today--trendy. Rap music has really perpetuated the black community and the latino community because it's the "in" thing. You're considered somewhat square or different if you are not with the group ... |
| MURRAY: | So the difference occurs because jazz was not in competition with other forms of music as it is today? |
| HARDIMAN: | Exactly. You had R and B kind of parallel with blues, but jazz was considered a higher art form, more intellectual. |
| MURRAY: | R and B never had any real big stars like Michael Jackson... |
| HARDIMAN: | If you consider James Brown and all those people who came before him. I'm thinking about Big Mama Thornton and some others who brought in the movement that Elvis Presley made popular. American rock and R and B music has gone to England and come back to America in the form of the Beetles and some other groups. African music came to America where it was fused with European music, then returned to Africa in its new form of jazz and was later brought back to America where it was changed again. Japanese are accepting the music; they love it, they think it's great. So are the Europeans; they have always appreciated our music and also appreciate the people, predominantly black people, who present it. Why do you think state departments of various countries used jazz musicians such as Dizzy (Gillespie) when they were failing with politics? They are adored all over the world and heralded as great stars--ambassadors of music. Benny Goodman was one of the few allowed behind the Iron Curtain ... |
| MURRAY: | I remember Louis Armstrong went to Russia about 40 years ago ... |
| HARDIMAN: | In the 1930s, right. His first trip was in the 1930s. |
| MINICCUCI: | I have a few questions. Senator Alan Sieroty, who was the original Chair of the Joint Committee on the Arts (now chaired by Senator Henry Mello), is now retired but serves on the board at KLON radio. In fact that's how we got Buddy Collette up here. In talking to Alan this week, he asked me to bring up an issue and this seems to be the appropriate time. Grover Sales, a professor at San Francisco State, indicated to him that university jazz history classes are being pushed out of the regular curriculum. They are offered, if offered at all, as extension courses or as half-unit credit classes. When I attended the University of California, Los Angeles, there were several jazz history classes that were available to undergraduates. Apparently, there are not as many offered today. Do you think that's true? And if it is true, is that prevalent throughout the California State University (CSU) as well as the University of California (UC) systems? |
| HARDIMAN: | I would say it varies and differs geographically. For example, UC Berkeley has a strong jazz program, but it is not part of the regular music curriculum, and to my knowledge, the students don't receive units for those classes. Despite this, they take those jazz courses even though they are taught in inferior facilities--the Student Union area. Classical music courses, on the other hand, are held on the other part of campus in the better facilities. At San Francisco State where Grover Sales teaches, there are negative attitudes about musicians who want to study jazz or rock and not classical music. So there are a lot of negative attitudes. Another example is when I started teaching at City College. There was a pep band and a jazz band and maybe one jazz history class when I first got there, but the instructor who taught them died. I ended up inheriting two jazz history classes. I now teach two jazz bands, a jazz/rock improvisation workshop, and an arranging/composing class. Today, its unique to find a so-called fulltime "jazz educator" on the staff of any music department. There are more than there used to be, but it's still very limited and they are hard to find. |
| MINICCUCI: | If it's true that jazz is not getting its equal share at four-year colleges, at least in the UC and CSU systems where there are public dollars, I would like to ascertain that fact through a survey by the joint committee on the arts. I wonder if you will help me structure questions and identify persons who should receive the survey. I think it's my boss' sense that public university systems, at the very least, ought to be treating jazz with the same kind of respect that it treats other musical forms, particularly in the classroom. It's outrageous that there is a difference in status. |
| HARDIMAN: | There's definitely a difference. The International Association of Jazz Educators is a growing organization that is trying to perpetuate jazz at all levels. It's similar to the MENC (Music Educators National Conference) and CMEA (California Music Educators Association), but these groups are very limited and are basically involved in classical music. At the MENC conference in San Diego, there was hardly any discussion of jazz. However, within those organizations, a lot can be done at the state and national levels. |
| CARRILLO: | How many chairs of jazz studies are there in this state? You have an unusual title ... |
| HARDIMAN: | Actually it's a name I have given myself. I don't think I have an official title as Chairman of Jazz Studies, but being that I teach six jazz classes, I'm basically the only jazzman there. |
| CARRILLO: | What's going on in the colleges? How many people are involved in jazz education? |
| HARDIMAN: | I can't quote you exact numbers, but an article that appeared in this fall's Fazz Educators Journal about incorporating jazz into curriculum makes the point that a jazz program increases the number of students coming into music programs. Where there are no jazz programs, students will go where there are jazz programs. So percentage-wise, I would say approximately half of the students have an interest in jazz and/or rock. |
| KIRK: | Excuse me for interrupting. I want to say that before Proposition 13, there was a lot more money for music programs. The passage of Proposition 13 really hurt the school's ability to enhance music programs. |
| MURRAY: | Can you get a master's degree in jazz? I thought I read somewhere ... |
| HARDIMAN: | It's possible, but they are very limited in the State of California. San Jose state, I believe, is one of the few. In fact, there are only a few colleges and universities that allow jazz degrees of any kind, whether it be a bachelor's or master's. |
| MURRAY: | Suppose the state offered a scholarship for a master's degree in jazz with a provision that the recipient of the scholarship teach for some period of time. We do this in other areas, for example, mathematics, science, education... |
| HARDIMAN: | I think that would be an excellent idea. I mentioned earlier that the state should mandate some type of provisions toward ensuring that there is not only jazz but music education at all levels throughout the state ... |
| MURRAY: | It was brought out by a couple of other speakers that the music instructors are not that versed in jazz ... |
| HARDIMAN: | Right, I mentioned that too .... |
| MURRAY: | But we could increase the number of music instructors who are versed in jazz, could we not? |
| HARDIMAN: | We definitely need more jazz instructors at the college and university level. |
| MURRAY: | The person who completes this scholarship could teach in secondary schools, right? |
| HARDIMAN: | Yes, at any level. When I came up, I was a classical musician. When I graduated from college, I was a classical musician. I played jazz on the side and didn't learn jazz until I got out on the streets and picked up what I could. Nowadays, students can learn it if it's available to them like it is in the Berkeley School District. Berkeley has been a leader in jazz education. Even though it originated here, appreciation for jazz is not happening in the United States. We have to start young in order to build respect and appreciation. |
| MURRAY: | Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Hardiman. |