Each season the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series looks to compliment its concert schedule by offering a series of educationally based activities. They are primary to our mission, which at its core states that we endeavor to present, promote, preserve and celebrate the great American art form known as “Jazz.” If you read between the lines the mission incorporates education - not simply the intent to educate the general public about this music but also to nurture the idea that jazz education but within the classroom ultimately leads to a greater number of jazz musicians and similarly a greater number of people who acquire a taste for this music.
The Jazz Series chose to name the education program after the late James Williams, who was not only a beloved and well-respected pianist and performer but also someone who felt an obligation to help up-and-coming artists. It is quite amazing, as a number of his peers and colleagues noted this past summer, that July 20, 2009 marked the FIFTH anniversary since the Memphis native turned Bostonian turned New Yorker succumbed to cancer at age 53.
Williams worked often in the classroom and within formal settings. He was 22 years old when the famed Berklee College of Music asked him to move to New England’s anchor city and become an instructor. Ultimately, after a long-standing career as a performer, James would serve as Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson College right up until his passing. As for that performing part, he never gave it up; and he always thought about both learning and teaching on the bandstand. Having been a member of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers (1977- 1981), having worked extensively with the likes of Milt Jackson and Clark Terry among a great many elder statesmen and women, James knew all about “on-the-job” training. More then anything James knew not just jazz history, but also the history and genealogy of jazz. He carried that tradition on whether he was teaching, working as a sideman or leading the bandstand. James embodied and embraced jazz as not simply a type of music but also a form of education.
The James Williams Jazz Series Education Program and Scholarship Fund
features a number of components.
• Jazz Series Jazz Camp Scholarship Fund. Each year since 2005 the Jazz Series has offered a select number of gifted and aspiring jazz students the opportunity to participate in an intensive week of study during the summer. The students work with professionals and interact with peers from all over the country. The scholarships, which range from $300 to $500 each - remain the only jazz-specific opportunity offered to Columbia students. Each award covers all or the majority of the cost at one of two camps - one hosted by UMKC under the auspices of Bobby Watson and Jim Widner, the other, the Jamey Aebersold Jazz Camp, which employs the University of Louisville as its home base. In 2009 the Jazz Series awarded five separate scholarships totaling $1,900. Your direct support helps keep this program going.
• Artists-in-Residence. This program centers on an artist or group who reside in Columbia for a multiple-day, concentrated stay. During the time the Artists-in-Residence offers a number of activities in the schools, K-12, at the University level and in the community. Appropriately enough, the 2009/2010 Artists-in-Residence is bassist Rufus Reid and his trio who will be present from March 6-9, 2010. During his stay Reid is slated to work with both Hickman and Rock Bridge High Schools - as well as conduct a master class and eventually perform with the MU Concert Jazz Band as part of the season schedule. It should be really something.
• “Jazz in the Schools” Initiative. This innovative and ambitious program continues to infuse jazz-oriented activities into the Columbia Public School District on a school-by-school basis. Working with the Columbia Public School’s Community Program, the Initiative serves as three-way collaboration between individual schools, K-12, their respective Partner(s) in Education (PIE) and the Jazz Series, which administrates the program. Through the generosity of individual PIEs, which underwrite the cost of up to three activities in an academic year at any one school, the Jazz Series, working with administrators and music specialists, organizes in-school activities such as concert performances, hands-on programs and lecture-demonstrations. With the support of the PIE partners, the “Jazz in the Schools” Initiative, which began in 2007, continues to grow.
• Annual Children’s Concert . One of our most popular endeavors, the Annual Children’s Concert offers each of the city’s elementary schools the opportunity to send their students to experience communal jazz “informance.” For many of the students this is their first impression of and experience with jazz.
