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Boston Mayor Menino Proclaims Hot and Cool: 40 Years of Jazz at NEC Week

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The proclamation honors the 40th Anniversary of New England Conservatory's first-in-the-nation Jazz Studies program, founded by visionary Conservatory President Gunther Schuller in 1969.

The Mayor lauds the Conservatory:
The world-class faculty of New England Conservatory's Jazz Studies Program has been recognized with 5 MacArthur Genius Grant awards and has included 4 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters. recognizing the many contributions the New England Conservatory's Jazz Studies Program has made over four decades to support, nurture and perpetuate jazz, America's art form, throughout the world.
Boston Mayor Menino

NEC celebrates the anniversary with a week each of ticketed and free concerts in Boston (October 18 – 24, 2009) and NYC (March 21—27, 2010) featuring some of NEC’s most renowned alumni, faculty and students, as well as clinics and community events. Proceeds from the concerts will support jazz scholarships at NEC.

A highlight of the Boston events is a performance by the Wayne Shorter Quartet with NEC’s Philharmonia on Saturday, October 24, in Jordan Hall. Shorter and his quartet will play the first set and then join forces with the NEC Philharmonia orchestra and Hugh Wolff, the Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras. Shorter is writing new charts especially for this collaboration with orchestra. Other highlights include the NEC Jazz 40th Summit, a gathering of some of the top talent in jazz today, with Gunther Schuller, Ran Blake, Bob Brookmeyer, Carl Atkins, Don Byron, Fred Hersch, Rachael Price, Dominique Eade, Cecil McBee, Billy Hart, Roger Kellaway and the NEC Jazz Orchestra; a Generations of Jazz series featuring faculty and alumni including Hankus Netsky, the Michael Winograd Trio, the Dominique Eade Trio, Rachael Price with Lake Street Dive, Jerry Bergonzi, and Noah Preminger.

In addition, there will be public workshops, master classes and a variety of concerts and clinics throughout the Boston area to connect with jazz lovers and performers of all ages.

A schedule of Boston events is included with this release. More events will be added in the fall. Tickets for the Boston events are now on sale. Go to http://necmusic.edu/jazz40 for more information.

The New York City celebrations take place March 21—27, 2010 with the centerpiece at B.B. King Blues Club on March 27. Headliners confirmed for that performance are John Medeski, Fred Hersch, Harvey Mason, Don Byron, Carl Atkins, and Ran Blake. Other venues are Birdland, Blue Note, and the Jazz Standard. Performers for those concerts will be announced shortly.

History of NEC Jazz Studies

The first fully accredited jazz studies program at a music conservatory, NEC’s program was the brainchild of Gunther Schuller, the jazz historian, horn player, composer, author, and conductor. Principal Horn in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at age 19, Schuller had discovered Duke Ellington as a teenager and pronounced jazz as important as classical music. Named President of the Conservatory in 1967, he moved quickly to incorporate jazz into the curriculum. By September 1969, he had gotten his unprecedented program approved by the National Association of Schools of Music and began offering classes. Closely allied to the Jazz Studies program was his Third Stream department, which came along a few years later and which linked classical and jazz into a new genre.

Schuller chose his jazz faculty with a connoisseur’s discernment. The first department chair was saxophonist Carl Atkins. Composer George Russell, who conceived the Lydian Chromatic Concept (which has importantly influenced jazz greats from Miles Davis to Maria Schneider), began a Conservatory association that continued until his recent passing. When Russell retired from teaching, the NEA Jazz Master became a Distinguished Artist-in-Residence Emeritus. Pianist Jaki Byard, called a “walking encyclopedia of jazz,” brought his eclecticism and generosity of spirit to his NEC teaching. And Ran Blake, who Schuller had discovered pushing a broom at Atlantic Records, came to NEC in 1968 and became the first chair of the Third Stream Department in 1974.

During the early years of Jazz at NEC, Atkins formed a trio composed of Donald Pate on bass, Harvey Mason on drums, and Ron Fransen on piano. With Atkins as saxophonist and coach, the group toured jazz festivals recruiting students and attracting national attention to the new NEC program.

Among the earliest students to enroll were Stanton Davis and Ricky Ford. Brought in by Ran Blake, Ford fronted the house band at Wally’s Caf while playing in Jaki Byard’s big band and Schuller’s repertory band at the Conservatory. “My participation in the NEC jazz ensemble under Jaki’s direction prepared me for entre into the Ellington Orchestra,” Ford has recalled.

By the time Schuller retired as President of NEC in 1977, the list of jazz graduates was already impressive. They included Anthony Coleman (who has returned to teach at NEC), Marty Ehrlich, Fred Hersch, Jerome Harris, Michael Moore, and Bo Winiker.

Throughout the history of NEC’s Jazz Studies program, the faculty has continued to be distinguished by its wide range of important artists including trumpeter John McNeil; saxophonists Jimmy Giuffre, Steve Lacy, and Joe Allard; drummer Bob Moses; bassist Dave Holland; trombonist-composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer; pianists Michael Cain and Stanley Cowell; and guitarists Gene Bertoncini, Chuck Wayne and Jack Wilkins. Vocalist Dominique Eade, who graduated in 1984, then became the first jazz performer to receive an NEC Artist Diploma in 1989, joined the faculty and has been a magnet for gifted young singers. Several, like Kris Adams, Luciana Souza, Lisa Thorson and Patrice Williamson, have gone on to prestigious careers.

So illustrious is NEC’s jazz faculty that five of the most eminent have received MacArthur “Genius” grants (Lacy, Russell, Blake, Schuller, and Miguel Zenn). In addition, Schuller, Brookmeyer, Russell, and Ron Carter have all been named NEA Jazz Masters.

Similarly, prominent alumni of NEC reads like a Who’s Who of Jazz and includes: Bruce Barth, Regina Carter, Freddy Cole, Marilyn Crispell, Marty Ehrlich, Ricky Ford, Satoko Fujii, Jerome Harris, Fred Hersch, Roger Kellaway, Mat Maneri, Harvey Mason, Andy McGhee, Bill McHenry, John Medeski, Vaughn Monroe, Michael Moore, Hankus Netsky, Jamie Saft, Frank London, Don Byron, George Schuller, Luciana Souza, Chris Speed, Cecil Taylor, Cuong Vu, Phil Wilson, Bo Winiker, Bernie Worrell, Rachel Z, Rachael Price, Richie Barshay, and Bridget Kearney.



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