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The James Williams Jazz Series Education Program
& Scholarship Fund.
Each season the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series looks to compliment its concert schedule by offering a series of educationally based activities. The Jazz Series chose to name the education program after the late James Williams, who was not only a beloved and well-respected pianist, performer and composer but also someone who thrived in the jazz education arena.
Jazz Series Educational Component
• Artists-in-Residence. Each season the Jazz Series selects an artist or an entire group to spend multiple days in our community during which time they work directly with students, K-12 and as well as with older students of college/university age both in educational and performance settings. Additionally, the Artists-in-Residence will interact with the community at large presenting a “public forum” on some aspect of jazz.
The 2011/2012 Artists-in-Residence is guitarist Russell Malone who will be present from March 6-8, 2012. During his stay Malone will conduct a public master class open to both students and the music community as well as rehearse and plan a concert with the MU Concert Jazz Band, which takes place at Hickman High School Auditorium as part of the 2011/2012 season schedule. Additionally, Malone will host a lunch-time forum at Daniel Boone Regional Library that will be free and open to the public.
→Click here for a detailed schedule of Russell Malone's residency.
• Jazz Series Jazz Camp Scholarship Fund. In 2005 the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series established the region's ONLY jazz-oriented scholarship designed to assist aspiring students — junior high school through college age — to further pursue and enhance their skills by undertaking an week-long intensive during the summer at a jazz camp. The scholarship application is competitive and guidelines are made available through the Jazz Series each February 1. A committee of area jazz educators under the direction of Dr. Arthur White, Director of Jazz Studies at University of Missouri. 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 the majority of the cost of the camps. At present, the Jazz Series works with two distinct jazz camps: under the auspices of Bobby Watson and the other, the Jamey Aebersold Jazz Camp, which employs the University of Louisville as its home base. Currently the Jazz Series offers five (5) separate scholarships.
→ To donate to the Scholarship Fund click here.
• “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. This season Russell Malone with the MU Concert Jazz Band will “host” the performance.
Jazz Series Education Sponsors
About James Williams
James Williams (March 8, 1951-July 20, 2004). Pianist James Williams always felt a responsibility to help up-and-coming artists both in the classroom and on the bandstand, passing on what he himself had learned along the way from his elders. Williams, who succumbed to cancer at age 53 was a Memphis native turned Bostonian turned New Yorker where he lived for some 30 years becoming one of the best-known pianists in the world. Throughout his life he worked often in the city's main clubs and venues as well as in the classroom and within more formal settings than the bandstand. He was 22 years old when the famed Berklee College of Music asked him to move to New England's anchor city from Tennessee and become an instructor. In 1999, in the midst of his already long ago-established career as a performer, Williams, while continuing to play concerts throughout the world, accepted the position of Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University, a nationally recognized program located in Wayne, New Jersey, a stone's throw from New York City. He held the position right up until his passing.
Williams was a member of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers (1977- 981); much of the time the ensemble included both Bobby Watson and Wynton Marsalis. He worked extensively with the likes of Milt Jackson and Clark Terry as well as with a great many other elder statesmen and women. Williams knew all about “on-the-bandstand” training. More than anything he knew not just jazz history, but also the history and genealogy of jazz. He carried that tradition forward whether he was teaching, working as a sideman or leading a band. Williams embodied and embraced jazz as not simply a musical genre, but also as an educational form and a way of life.
Listen to a "James Williams Birthday Celebration" on NPR's JazzSet
Hosted by Dee Dee Bridgewater. With with Mulgrew Miller & Friends, Bill Mobley, Bill Easley, David Demsey, Ray Drummond, Rodney Green, and Special Guest Ashley Pettet. [March 4, 2010]
