The jazz studies program at the University of Kansas in Lawrence is well-established, comprehensive, nationally renowned, and thriving. 
JAZZ EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
By Charlton Price
The jazz studies program at the University of Kansas in Lawrence is well-established, comprehensive, nationally renowned, and thriving.
But it wasn't always thus. In the 1960s Dean of Fine Arts Thomas Gorton is said to have prowled the halls, all-ears for forbidden jazz sounds that might waft from behind practice room doors.
Yet even then there was jazz at KU, albeit extracurricular and underground. Mainly, at first, this was because of Dick Wright, a classically trained operatic tenor who was also an ardent jazz historian and fan. For 40 years of Saturdays, Dick hosted “The Jazz Scene,” a program still aired weekly on KU's public radio station. He gathered a huge archive of jazz recordings and scores. And he inspired extracurricular, off-hours student jazz band rehearsals, literally underground, in a campus basement far from the music department building.
“Dick was a tireless crusader for the music,” says Dan Gailey, today's jazz program director. “Even later, when there was an official program of jazz studies, Dick was at its core.” Everyone went to Dick for mentoring, or for help in using the ever expanding archive of recordings and scores he had started and constantly fed. The archive includes, for example, Gil Evans' arrangements done for the Claude Thornhill band, and early Kenton charts.
Director Gailey remembers how he once “remarked to Dick offhand that I hoped to be able to fill out and complete my Coltrane collection. Dick kind of stroked his chin. Very soon he came back to me with a giant tray of cassettes – everything Coltrane had ever recorded. He did many things like that for others.” Because of all his contributions, Dick Wright's inspiration for jazz scholarship and teaching still strongly under girds the KU program.
Jazz at KU came above ground in the 1970s, spurred by additions of some new students with strong interest in jazz beyond their studies of classical instrumental performance, music theory, and composition. These included Leonard Cutty, who came from the US Navy Commodores Band; and Earl Dumler, who later left to play baritone sax with Stan Kenton and is now a fills a first-call double reeds chair in the LA studios. And then came Bob Foster, who would be for three decades KU's director of bands. It was Foster who persuaded the Dean of Fine Arts to make a formal commitment to jazz studies in the music curriculum – responding to faculty demand, and because increasing numbers of the best music students wanted to study and play jazz. Other jazz ensemble directors joining the faculty in the 1970s included Jim Barnes, now a world-famous wind band composer, and Ron McCurdy, who came to KU to earn his doctorate and stayed on to run the jazz program.(He's now director of jazz studies at the University of Southern California.)
Since 1990 Dan Gailey has headed KU jazz studies. He's only the fourth director in the program's history.
Gailey got his academic training near his home turf in the Pacific Northwest, and at Northern Colorado University . He also played tenor sax on a Caribbean cruise ship for a year “and I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. But it was good training, because the acts on shipboard constantly needed fresh music, and I had to write or arrange a lot of it.” Now he thinks of himself “mainly as a writer.” Energetic and entrepreneurial in program development, Gailey also teaches, plays, and handles the departmental administrative chores. “It's easier now,” he notes. “We've begun to add adjunct faculty for instrument instruction. So I don't have to try to do it all anymore.” All the new arrivals have in-depth professional experience as working musicians and teachers. Among the adjunct faculty members are Rod Fleeman for guitar, and pianist Wayne Hawkins. Another recent adjunct appointment is drummer Cody Loucks, who is the education manager of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE), in Manhattan , KS . (Loucks replaced Greg Carroll at IAJE. Carroll now directs the American Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine in Kansas City .)
Today over 100 undergraduate and graduate students participate in jazz studies at KU. There are three jazz ensembles, five to seven combos, and most semesters, a strong jazz vocal program. Interest in and recruitment to the program comes importantly from a yearly festival in Lawrence for high school bands from across the Midwest . Each summer, too, there is an on-campus jazz camp, staffed by both regular and adjunct faculty.
The KU jazz studies curriculum includes instruction in reeds, brass, and percussion, along with music theory, arranging, and jazz history. Everyone studies piano, to strengthen helping music learning and to increase composing and arranging skills. All music students also must take the core courses in the liberal arts. And now an undergraduate music student at KU can elect to major in jazz.
Insights and experience from other distinguished academic jazz programs have benefited jazz studies at KU – notably North Texas State Unversity, Dan Gailey's alma mater Northern Colorado, and especially the jazz program at the University of Oregon, directed by where Dan's friend Steve Owen.
The KU Number One Ensemble band is going to Europe in the summer of 2008. Their itinerary may include Montreux in Switzerland and Umbria in Italy . Perhaps even Lithuania : KU already has an exchange arrangement with the music program at the national university in Vilnius . This will be a first time overseas for KU jazz students. KU bands have often toured frequently in the USA and KU jazz ensembles have played at the annual IAJE Conference in different US cities. But apart from being a working musician and composer-arranger on Caribbean cruise ships, and a long-ago two weeks on a fellowship in Sweden, the 2008 Europe trip will be a first for Professor Gailey, too.
And no doubt, and soon, there will announcements of further developments and plans for jazz studies at KU.