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 LEON BRADY & CARROLL LEWIS JAM talks with the renowned KC-based educators about jazz in the schools, festival competition, and keeping the music alive.
JAM: Let's start with your early years as music teachers. Was there such a thing as "jazz education" back then? CL: Not where I was... in southern Baptist, Willow Springs, Missouri. We were struggling just to have a good concert band. There really wasn't even a desire to have a stage band. And they were called "stage bands" because no one wanted to mention dancing! JAM: When was this? CL: Early '50s. Korea. '52. LB: When I went to Sumner High School in 1966 jazz wasn't even in the curriculum. We had to meet at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning. I taught at Northeast (Junior High School) before that, from '59 to '66, and we had a little pep band; but it wasn't exactly five saxes, four trombones and four trumpets (laughs). There were only certain things we could do. JAM: Talk about some of your experiences during those first teaching jobs, especially when it came to getting more kids involved in playing music. LB: At Northeast I was brought in to build the music program. When I got there they only had 44 kids involved in music; there was the concert band, an orchestra, and a pep band. When I left in '66 there were over 500 kids in the program. CL: After Willow Springs, I took the Lexington (MO) job for five years, because I wanted to learn more about orchestra. After the first day of school I went to them and said: "You misrepresented this job to me! You said you had an orchestra! But yours has two violins, 15 saxophones and a piano player!" (laughs) So I said, "You buy me 12 violins, I'll travel the schools, and we'll have an orchestra!" It wasn't long before I was starting 500 students. It was one of my proudest achievements. JAM: But no jazz... CL: No jazz. Because there wasn't time for jazz. You had to do the whole thing! But I tried to incorporate jazz whenever I could. I had a little woodwind quintet that I got on Channel 5 TV here in Kansas City once -- this was in the middle '50s. I wrote them a jazz number, I played piano, and we used the string bass player out of the orchestra. And it kinda swung! ...But not really. (laughs) It wasn't until I came to Raytown in 1959 that I was able to start a jazz band. JAM: How did the jazz education movement as we know it today get started?
LB: I'm not really sure. But I can tell you that it was important for me wherever I was teaching because of my background as a player. I wanted to pass that along to the kids. JAM: Who have you played with? LB: Dakota Staton, Blue Mitchell, Lou Donaldson, Marilyn Maye, Clark Terry, George Duke, Charles Kynard... and many others. So it made sense for me as a teacher to share that experience with the students. JAM: So you were always more interested in starting your own jazz education movement wherever you taught? LB: That's right. Because where I was teaching, a lot of the kids weren't even familiar with the players! And I felt it was important to expose them to certain things. That was an important part of my job. JAM: Maybe a better way to ask the question would be: how did the whole "stage band" movement develop like it did? CL: Stan Kenton. He had the first stage band camp ever. And Matt Benton of the IAJE in Manhattan (KS) was very big. And Mr. Hall at North Texas State -- I can't think of his first name -- was also very big. JAM: Was this before Leon Breeden? CL: Oh, my goodness, yes! North Texas had jazz in the curriculum way back. It was a loner. No one believed in it. It didn't have the same prestige that it has today. But about Stan Kenton... In 1963 my concert band won the Enid (OK) Concert Band Festival. My jazz band was there, too. We didn't win first, but I got a scholarship to the Stan Kenton Clinic at Indiana University. One full week for free! With Stan Kenton! It really opened my eyes. JAM: Did either of you ever have difficulty getting jazz in the school curriculum? CL: I never tried to put it in the curriculum. I changed it from "stage band" to "lab jazz band" meaning that we were a lab outside of school. And that separated the men from the boys. If you really wanted to come, you were there on Tuesday night, on your own time. The ones who wanted to swing were going to swing! My main focus in the curriculum was concert band. LB: I had kind of a different approach. My kids were more interested in stage band than concert band. And because I needed them in concert and marching band, stage band was the main attraction. And so was marching band when the orchestra sorta died. I was trying to talk to them about Bach and Beethoven and along comes Miles Davis and Max Roach! Let's face it: you know who the kids are going to go for!
JAM: Was jazz festival competition an important part of the process in those days? CL: Well, with Leon being in Kansas, he couldn't do that, right? LB: That's right. CL: But in Missouri we had competitive festivals and fought to keep them. JAM: Why was it different in Kansas? LB: The Activities Association wouldn't allow us to compete. It was just the rule. So we would come across the state line and play as a non-competitive guest. And even though we weren't competing, we were competing! (laughs) We would see Raytown South, or Jefferson City, who had the top bands, and it raised the bar for us to hear what everybody else was doing. JAM: Was it good for the Raytown South band to hear the Sumner band? CL: Of course! There are so many different ways to play this music. JAM: In our interview last year with former IAJE president Ron McCurdy, he said, "I think competitive jazz festivals have outlived their usefulness. (Educators) pick three or four tunes in September and play the same tunes in April. In my humble estimation, that is not jazz education." Any thoughts on that observation? CL: Baloney. He should be humble. I don't believe that. I radically disagree. I think competitive festivals are important. LB: Yes, they are.
CL: Listen. When you go to the state concert band contest and you're playing for a rating, just look around and see how many kids are at each concert. The same thing is true at a competitive jazz festival. The kids don't want to miss the chance to hear their competition! These kids have keen ears, and they can tell how well someone is playing. Like Leon said, it raises the bar! LB: I agree. I can see what (McCurdy) is saying about only playing a few pieces of music. But we never did that! CL: No sir! LB: We played piece after piece after piece. And when we were getting close to a festival we would start putting more emphasis on two or three. CL: That's right. You start with 20 or 30 -- or at least I did -- and you weed it down. JAM: Here is another question that has been tossed around for years: Can jazz really be "taught" in the formal setting of a school, or is it best learned on the bandstand? LB: Most people say you have to "feel" jazz. That's true. But you also must have the foundation in order to feel it! I mean, you can "feel" something and not know where it's going next. But if you know the chord changes and the structure of a song, then you can add that knowledge to the feeling! And it also gets back to what I said about exposure. So many of the jazz musicians in the Kansas City area now who went to Sumner got their background by being exposed to jazz in school. And, like Carroll said, also at the Stan Kenton clinics. CL: I think Leon would also agree with me that, back in those days, we felt a certain responsibility to give the kids something they could use in college to make a few bucks! If you were a competent jazz player, you could make some money that way! But to answer your question -- if jazz is not taught in the classroom, we are going to lose it. Period. JAM: Only so much can be accomplished in the limited time of a school rehearsal. What are some of the best ways for a serious jazz student to independently improve his or her skills? CL: The play-along recordings. Jamey Aebersold. All of that is marvelous now. With rhythm sections like that, you don't need to wait for the teacher! LB: The students can also go around to where other people are playing. The most important word there is in jazz is: listen. Every educator emphasizes that; but when the student realizes how important listening is, then that's when they really start to learn. JAM: There are those high-profile jazz artists -- like Clark Terry, for example -- who've devoted a certain part of their careers to playing with school jazz bands around the country. How important is such contact with the jazz greats? LB: (laughs) It's very important! When the kids find someone they can relate to -- like Clark, who has devoted his life to jazz education -- it changes everything. I mean, first of all, the kids look at someone like Clark as an icon; but then for him to talk to them, and play with them, and relate to them on their level, and do it so easily... that's what it's all about. JAM: Were outside soloists invited to appear with the Raytown South jazz band? CL: We liked to use local people, who always did a very nice job. Arch Martin helped us a lot. And so did Jess Cole when he was alive. Local people are often forgotten. I still believe that. JAM: You've each seen a lot of changes in the jazz world over the years. Are there as many professional opportunities for today's aspiring jazz musicians as there were 30 or 40 years ago? CL: (pause) I'd hate to be starting now. I looked over at Tommy Ruskin at a job the other day and said, "How would you like to be starting now?" He said, "No, thanks." LB: I keep hearing that "jazz is dying, jazz is dead." And I totally disagree with that. But I do agree that it's harder now than it used to be. And I also feel that jazz is not being passed on. That's what we're trying to do with the KC Youth Jazz Band, which is part of the Mid-America Arts Foundation. We're trying to pass on our jazz heritage. (See "News & Notes" in the April/May 2002 JAM, and also in this issue.-- Ed.) JAM: So much of jazz education in the schools seems to be big band oriented. But aren't big bands a thing of the past? CL: They're dinosaurs; but there's still some great music written for them. LB: We (the KC Youth Jazz Band) just did a concert at the Unity Temple and we had a good crowd -- with a lot of kids! And the kids follow the kids. If you can involve more kids, then you can develop an audience. It's not just gonna happen by itself. CL: I have a theory about big bands in the schools. The smaller a band gets, the more competent the people have to be. But with a big band, everyone doesn't have to be a soloist, and there's more potential for camaraderie. It's more inclusive and more people benefit from the experience. JAM: It's also sometimes said that jazz isn't the music of today's younger generation like it once was. Agree? Disagree?
CL: I think it goes even deeper than that. How would you like to be a band director today trying to teach young musicians how to swing? 99.9% of the kids are listening to rock and roll where the division of the beat is by two. No exceptions! They may hear 6/8 in a Sousa march, but everything else they hear is a rock rhythm divisible by two! And the director has to be able to teach them swing? Swing is something you can't write or read -- you have to feel it! But if students never hear it, the band director of today doesn't have much of a chance. LB: It gets back to exposure. That's the bottom line. We have to expose kids to this music. Like Carroll said, if you haven't heard it, and if you don't listen to it... CL: ...then how can you feel it?! LB: Right! JAM: A final question. As veteran educators, how you feel about the current state of education in general? CL: I think we're dumbing things down. We need to return to a pursuit of excellence. We need to strive for that again. LB: My philosophy has always been that the kids will do what you expect of them. If you expect a little, they will do a little. If you expect a lot, they will do a lot. One of the things I can't understand about public education today is how music is one of the first things that gets cut. Music builds strong self discipline and respect! And respect is one of the most important things that has been lost by this generation. Music breeds respect. That's why Carroll and I have always gotten along. He was over there, and I was over here, but we always had that mutual respect. * * * A drummer and percussionist, Leon Brady has taught music in Crestview (FL), Northeast Junior High School (Kansas City, KS), Sumner High School (Kansas City, KS) from 1966 to 1976, and, from 1976 to 2001 he owned and operated Brady & Sons Music Co., which is now simply Brady Music.
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