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2017 History of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble Singing Movement in the Public Schools of the Boise Valley from It's Inception through the Academic Year 1989-1990 Richard John Hamilton
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COLLEGE OF MUSIC
THE HISTORY OF THE VOCAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE SINGING MOVEMENT IN THE
PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF THE BOISE VALLEY FROM IT’S INCEPTION THROUGH THE
ACADEMIC YEAR 1989-1990
By
RICHARD JOHN HAMILTON
A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
2017
Richard John Hamilton defended this dissertation on July 6, 2017.
The members of the supervisory committee were:
Kevin Fenton
Professor Directing Dissertation
Christopher Moore
University Representative
Kimberly Van Weelden
Committee Member
Andre J. Thomas
Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my committee members - Dr. Kevin Fenton (major professor), Dr. Andre
Thomas, Dr. Kimberly VanWeelden, and Dr. Christopher Moore. I appreciate the time you committed to serving on my committee and will treasure always, all that I’ve learned from each of you during my time at the Florida State University.
To my colleagues - Hillary Krueger Ridgley, Amon Eady, Adam Zrust, Sandy Hinkley
Brandon Boyd, and Christopher Harris, Thank You for all of the encouragement throughout the process of writing this document. I’m honored to have studied with, and learned from, all of you over the past three years.
To the study participants, many of whom I consider my mentors, I can’t thank you enough for your participation in this dissertation - Jerry Vevig, Bruce Walker, Vern Swain, Sue
Hough-Block, Lonnie Cline, Moyle Brown, Rob Newburn, Cathy Gilk, Glen Grant, Linda
Schmidt, Quinn Van Paepeghem, Paul Olson, Rich Lapp, Barb Oldenburg, and Ted Totorica.
A hearty thank you to all who aided/assisted in the production of this document - Dr.
Suzanne Rita Byrnes, Laura Gayle Green, Priscilla Oja, Nancy Stephan, Carolyn Warner, and
Cheryl Gratton, and Dave Cazier. I couldn’t have made it to the finished product without you.
To my mother E. Kay Hamilton who was an active participant in the process of producing this study and continues to be an inspiration in all areas of my life, Thank You and I love you.
This document is dedicated to my father Robert Bruce Hamilton (1927-2012) who first exposed me to jazz through the big bands of Glen Miller and Stan Kenton.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ...... viii LIST OF FIGURES ...... ix ABSTRACT ...... xviii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: PURPOSES AND PROCEDURES ...... 1
Purpose of the Study ...... 2 Sources of Data ...... 3 Definition of Terms ...... 3 Delimitations ...... 4 Need for the Study ...... 5 Procedures of the Study ...... 5 Organization of the Study ...... 8
CHAPTER 2: HISTORICAL BACKDROP ...... 13
Jazz and Early Jazz Solo Singing (1920s and 1930s) ...... 13 History of Professional Vocal Jazz Groups (1930-1940) ...... 15 History of Professional Vocal Jazz Groups (1940 – 1955) ...... 19 History of Professional Vocal Jazz Groups (1955 – 1970) ...... 24 History of Jazz Education (1920-1970) ...... 29 History of Jazz Education: The Tanglewood Symposium and the National Association of Jazz Educators ...... 32 History of Vocal Jazz Education - Hal Malcolm ...... 36 History of Vocal Jazz Education- Waldo King ...... 39 History of Vocal Jazz Education – The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival ...... 42
CHAPTER 3: CAPITAL SENIOR AND FAIRMONT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – JERRY VEVIG AND BRUCE WALKER, DIRECTORS ...... 45
Jerry Vevig – Early Biography / The Capital Singers Pre-Vevig and Early Vevig ...... 46 Jerry Vevig – First Vocal Jazz Festival Experiences/Early Mentorships ...... 49 Structure of Early Festivals – The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival Model ...... 54 Jerry Vevig – The Capital Singers – First Reno Jazz Festival / Early Arrangements/ Group Profile / Selection Process ...... 57 Jerry Vevig – Other Literature and Performances ...... 59 Bruce Walker – Early Biography ...... 62 Bruce Walker – Early Career/the Fairmont Junior High Swing Choir / Literature ...... 64 Bruce Walker - Listening Influences / the Inland Jazz Festival/ Jerry Sanford ...... 68
iv CHAPTER 4: BORAH SENIOR AND WEST JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL – VERN SWAIN AND SUE HOUGH-BLOCK, DIRECTORS ...... 72
Vern Swain – Early Biography and Collegiate Studies ...... 73 Vern Swain – Hal Malcolm Mentorship/Early Vocal Jazz Literature and Festivals ...... 74 Vern Swain - Vocal Jazz Listening / Barduhn Arrangements / Festival Programming and Improvisation ...... 78 Vern Swain – The Make-Up and Logistical Calendar of the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble / National Honors ...... 80 Sue Hough-Block – Early Biography ...... 86 Sue Hough-Block – The West Junior High School Choral Program and the Swing Choir .. 88 Sue Hough-Block - The University of Idaho Jazz Festival / Vocal Jazz Literature / Early Junior High School Vocal Jazz Ensembles in the Boise Valley ...... 91
CAPTER 5: MERIDIAN AND NEW PLYMOUTH SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – LONNIE CLINE AND MOYLE BROWN, DIRECTORS ...... 95
Lonnie Cline – Early Biography and Teaching Career ...... 95 Lonnie Cline – The “New Dimensions” ...... 98 Lonnie Cline – Early Vocal Jazz Literature and Festivals ...... 99 Lonnie Cline – Southern Idaho Conference Vocal Jazz Festival and Exchange Concerts .. 103 Bruce Walker – Lowell Scott Junior High School ...... 104 Moyle Brown – Early Biography ...... 105 Moyle Brown – The New Plymouth Swing Choir/Bel Canto Jazz ...... 107 Moyle Brown – Vocal Jazz Festivals ...... 110 Moyle Brown – Vocal Jazz Literature ...... 113
CHAPTER 6: EAST AND FAIRMONT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – ROB NEWBURN AND CATHY GILK, DIRECTORS ...... 115
Rob Newburn – Early Life and Musical Biography ...... 115 Rob Newburn - East Junior High and the Swing Choir ...... 117 Rob Newburn – Early Mentorships and the Rhythm Section ...... 121 Rob Newburn – Phil Mattson/Vocal Jazz Arrangements/ Specific Rehearsal and Improvisational Techniques ...... 123 Rob Newburn – Vocal Jazz Festivals and Competition ...... 127 Cathy Gilk – Early Biography ...... 130 Cathy Gilk – The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir ...... 132 Cathy Gilk – Arrangements/Sound of Boise Groups/Rhythm Section ...... 135
v CHAPTER 7: MOUNTAIN HOME AND BORAH SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – LONNIE CLINE AND GLEN GRANT, DIRECTORS ...... 138
Lonnie Cline – Mentorship with Hal Malcolm and Listening ...... 138 Lonnie Cline – Mountain Home High School and the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble / the Rhythm Section ...... 139 Lonnie Cline – Vocal Jazz Literature ...... 142 Lonnie Cline – Vocal Jazz Festivals and Why Vocal Jazz Ensemble Singing Flourished in the Boise Valley ...... 145 Glen Grant – Early Biography ...... 149 Glen Grant – Borah High School and the Contemporary Directions Ensemble ...... 151 Glen Grant – Vocal Jazz Education and Festivals ...... 153 Glen Grant – Vocal Jazz Literature ...... 157 Glen Grant – Rhythm Section ...... 160
CHAPTER 8: CAPITAL SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL – JERRY VEVIG AND LINDA SCHMIDT, DIRECTORS ...... 162
Jerry Vevig – Vocal Jazz Arrangements and Rhythm Section ...... 162 Jerry Vevig – Listening Influences / Vocal Improvisation /the Capital Singers Tone Quality / Feature Tunes ...... 167 Linda Schmidt – Early Biography/ Academic Studies /Early Teaching Career ...... 172 Linda Schmidt – Capital High School and the Capital Singers ...... 175 Linda Schmidt – Jazz Education Through Listening /Mentorships/ Vocal Jazz Festival Participation ...... 178 Linda Schmidt – Rhythm Section and Other Vocal Jazz Events ...... 182 Linda Schmidt – Vocal Jazz Arrangements and Early Influences on Boise Valley Groups ...... 185
CHAPTER 9: MERIDIAN SENIOR AND WEST JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – QUINN VAN PAEPAGHEM AND PAUL OLSON, DIRECTORS ...... 189
Quinn Van Paepeghem – Early Biography ...... 190 Quinn Van Paepeghem – Meridian High School and the New Dimensions ...... 194 Quinn Van Paepeghem – Mentorships and Vocal Jazz Festival Participation ...... 197 Paul Olson – Early Biography ...... 204 Paul Olson – West Junior High and The West Junior High Singers ...... 206 Paul Olson – Vocal Jazz Literature / Festivals ...... 209 Paul Olson – Lessons Learned at Vocal Jazz Events ...... 212
vi CHAPTER 10: BOISE AND MERIDIAN SENIOR & FAIRMONT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS BRUCE WALKER, SUE HOUGH-BLOCK, VERN SWAIN, AND RICH LAPP, DIRECTORS ...... 215
Rich Lapp – Early Biography ...... 215 Rich Lapp – Fairmont Junior High School and the Swing Choir ...... 217 Rich Lapp – Vocal Jazz Education/ Festival Participation / Rhythm Section ...... 221 Rich Lapp – Vocal Jazz Arrangements and Vocal Improvisation ...... 223 Bruce Walker - Boise High School (1984/1985 and 1985/1986) ...... 226 Sue Hough-Block – Boise High School (1986/1987 – 1989-1990) ...... 229 Vern Swain – Meridian High School (1985/1986 & 1986/1987) ...... 232
CHAPTER 11: CENTENNIAL AND MERIDIAN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – BARB OLDENBURG AND TED TOTORICA, DIRECTORS ...... 235
Barb Oldenburg – Early Biography ...... 236 Barb Oldenburg – Collegiate Years and Early Teaching ...... 239 Barb Oldenburg – Centennial High School and the Jazz Choir / Vocal Jazz Listening Influences / Festivals and Literature ...... 242 Ted Totorica – Early Biography ...... 248 Ted Totorica – Meridian High School and the New Dimensions ...... 250 Ted Totorica – Vocal Jazz Festivals /Literature/Rehearsal and Improvisational Techniques ...... 252
CHAPTER 12: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH . 258
APPENDICES ...... 272
A. NAJE EDUCATOR JOURNAL - EDUCATIONAL VOCAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE ARTICLES (1969-1990) ...... 272 B. HAL MALCOLM - SIGNIFICANT EARLY MT. HOOD VOCAL JAZZ FESTIVAL PARTICIPANTS (1968-1985) ...... 276 C. NORTHWESTERN CONVENTION PERFORMANCES AND CLINICS RELATED TO VOCAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE SINGING (1968-1990) ...... 278 D. NAJE EDUCATOR JOURNAL FEATURED CHOIRS (1971-1989) ...... 283 E. VOCAL JAZZ TYPE LITERATURE PERFORMED BY EDUCATIONAL VOCAL JAZZ ENSEMBLES FROM THE BOISE VALLEY (1970-1990) ...... 288 F. CONFIRMATION OF ORAL HISTORY STATUS ...... 299 G. CONSENT FORM FOR STUDY/INTERVIEW PARTICIPATION ...... 300
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 301
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 308
vii LIST OF TABLES
Table 12.1 - Alphabetical List of Early Vocal Jazz Educators in The Boise Valley School(s) (Including Teaching Details) ...... 260
Table 12.2 - Vocal Jazz Mentors Who Had an Impact On Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Educators ...... 261
Table 12.3 - Professional Jazz Artist’s and Ensemble’s Who Influenced Boise Vallley Vocal Jazz Educators ...... 263
Table 12.4 - Vocal Jazz Events Attended by Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Educators ...... 265
Table 12.5 - Most Popular Vocal Jazz Arrangers of the Early Vocal Jazz Educators in the Boise Valley ...... 269
viii LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 – Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong - photos courtesy of Wikimedia (Rainey & Smith) & Library of Congress (Armstrong – Gotlieb Jazz Public Domain Photos) ...... 14
Figure 2.2 – The Boswell Sisters - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain) ...... 15
Figure 2.3 – The Mills Brothers - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain) ...... 16
Figure 2.4 – The Ink Spots - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain) ...... 17
Figure 2.5 – The Merry-Mac’s - photo downloaded from www.singers.com ...... 18
Figure 2.6 – The Modernaires - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain) ...... 18
Figure 2.7 – The Pied Pipers - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain) ...... 19
Figure 2.8 - June Christy performing with the Stan Kenton Orchestra -photo courtesy of Library of Congress (Gotleib Jazz Public Domain Photos) ...... 20
Figure 2.9 – Jazz Vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Bille Holiday, Joe Williams, Anita O’Day, Carmen McRae, and Mel Torme. Photos courtesy of Wikimedia (Sinatra and McRae) and Gotlieb (Fitzgerald, Vaughan,, and Torme). O’Day photo downloaded from www.radio3.rai.it ...... 21
Figure 2.10 – Mel Torme and the Meltones - photo downloaded from www.singers.com ... 22
Figure 2.11 - The Four Freshmen - photo downloaded from independent.co.uk ...... 23
Figure 2.12 – The Hi-Lo’s - Photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain) ...... 24
Figure 2.13 – Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross - Photo downloaded from jazztalk.net ...... 25
Figure 2.14 – The Double Six of Paris - photo downloaded from jmeshel.com ...... 26
Figure 2.15 - The Swingle Singers - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain) ...... 27
Figure 2.16 - The Singers Unlimited -photo downloaded from www.singers.com ...... 28
Figure 2.17 - The Manhattan Transfer - photo downloaded from songbook1.files.wordpress.com ...... 29
Figure 2.18 - Stan Kenton - photo courtesy of Library of Congress (Gottleib Jazz Public Domain Photos) ...... 31
ix Figure 2.19 - The Founding of NAJE. Participants left to right M.E. Hall, Charles L. Gary, Louis G. Wersen, Stan Kenton, John Roberts and Matt Betton - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 33
Figure 2.20 - An Example of the NAJE Journal “Choral Page.” (Feb/Mar 1973 – Vo. 5, No.3) - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 34
Figure 2.21 - Hal Malcolm – photo courtesy of the subject’s family ...... 35
Figure 2.22 - The Mount Hood Community College Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Hal Malcolm, director) - photo courtesy of subject ...... 37
Figure 2.23 - Waldo King -photo courtesy of the subject ...... 39
Figure 2.24 - Waldo King playing saxophone during his youth (second saxophone from the left) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 40
Figure 2.25 – The Roosevelt High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Waldo King, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 41
Figure 3.1 - Jerry Vevig - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 45
Figure 3.2 - Dave Barduhn - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 51
Figure 3.3 – The 1971/1972 Capital Singers (Jerry Vevig, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 52
Figure 3.4 - The Capital Singers (1971/1972 - Jerry Vevig, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 53
Figure 3.5 - An advertisement for the first Mt. Hood Vocal Jazz Ensemble album “PleaseWalk Softly” as it appeared in the NAJE Journal - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 53
Figure 3.6. – The program for the 1980 Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of Dave Barduhn ...... 55
Figure 3.7 - The Roosevelt High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Waldo King, director) at the 1972 Reno International Jazz Festival in Reno, NV. .Dave Barduhn is behind King (second row far left) - photo courtesy of the subject - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 58
Figure 3.8 – The Roosevelt High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Waldo King, director) performing at the 1972 Reno International Jazz Festival in Reno, NV - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 58
x Figure 3.9 – The 1975 Capital Singers (Jerry Vevig, director) -photo courtesy of the subject ...... 61
Figure 3.10 – Bruce Walker - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 62
Figure 3.11 - The first Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (Bruce Walker, director, 1971) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 64
Figure 3.12 – One of the early Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir’s (Bruce Walker, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 67
Figure 3.13 – An advertisment for arrangements by Anita Kerr published by Hal Leonard - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 69
Figure 3.14 – Bruce Walker’s last Swing Choir at Fairmont Junior High School (1973/1974) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 71
Figure 4.1 - Vern Swain - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 72
Figure 4.2 - The Borah High School Swing Choir (1974 - Vern Swain, director) in performance – photo courtesy of the subject ...... 75
Figure 4.3 – Hal Malcolm around the time he scolded Vern Swain for his repertoire choices at the Reno International Jazz Festival -photo courtesy of Dave Barduhn ...... 77
Figure 4.4 – A keyboardist from the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble at Borah High School - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 81
Figure 4.5 - Vern Swain at the keyboard at Borah High School - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 82
Figure 4.6 - The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1976 - Vern Swain, director). The first vocal jazz ensemble from Idaho to be recognized as a “guest choral ensemble” in the NAJE Educator Journal (April/May 1976 - Vol. 8, No. 4) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 84
Figure 4.7 - The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1978 – Vern Swain, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival (Moscow, Idaho) - photo courtesy of subject ...... 85
Figure 4.8 – Sue Hough-Bock - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 86
Figure 4.9 - The West Junior High School Swing Choir (1975 – Sue Hough, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 89
xi Figure 4.10 - The West Junior High Swing Choir (1976 – Sue Hough, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 90
Figure 4.11 – An advertisement promoting the early music of Ed Lojeski - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 93
Figure 5.1 - Lonnie Cline - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 95
Figure 5.2 – Lonnie Cline conducts the New Dimensions at Meridian High School - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 97
Figure 5.3 - The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1974 - Lonnie Cline, director) in performance - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 99
Figure 5.4 - The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1975 - Lonnie Cline, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 101
Figure 5.5 - The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1976 – Lonnie Cline, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 102
Figure 5.6 - The Meridian High School New Dimension (1975 -Lonnie Cline, director) in performance - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 104
Figure 5.7 – Moyle Brown - photo courtesy of the subject’s daughter ...... 105
Figure 5.8 - The New Plymouth High School Swing Choir (1975 - Moyle Brown, director) - photo courtesy of the subjects daughter ...... 108
Figure 5.9 – The New Plymouth High School Bel Canto Jazz (1974 – Moyle Brown, director) performing - photo courtesy of the subjects daughter ...... 109
Figure 5.10 – A school newspaper clipping about the New Plymouth High School Swing Choir’s first out of state trip - photo courtesy of the subject’s Daughter ...... 110
Figure 5.11 – The New Plymouth High School Swing Choir (1976 - Moyle Brown, director) at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival in Gresham, Oregon - photo courtesy of the subjects daughter ...... 112
Figure 6.1 - Rob Newburn - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 115
Figure 6.2 - The East Junior High School Mad-Jazz Singers (1983 – Rob Newburn, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 119
Figure 6.3 – An advertisement for the “Soundsation” Jazz Camp as it appeared in the NAJE Educator Journal - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 123
xii Figure 6.4 – An advertisement for the Phil Mattson Vocal Jazz Solo and Ensemble Workshop as it appeared in the NAJE Educator Journal - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 124
Figure 6.5 – The East Junior High School Mad-Jazz Singers (1984 – Rob Newburn, director). Kristin Korb is in the front row, fourth from the left - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 125
Figure 6.6 – Jack Kunz - photo courtesy of the subject’s family ...... 126
Figure 6.7 - Cathy Gilk - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 130
Figure 6.8 - The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1978 – upper and 1979 - Lower / Cathy Gilk, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ..... 133
Figure 6.9 - The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1978 - Cathy Gilk, director) performing at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 135
Figure 6.10 – The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1980 - Cathy Gilk, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 137
Figure 7.1 - Lonnie Cline - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 138
Figure 7.2 – The drummer for the Meridian High School New Dimensions (1975 – Lonnie Cline, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 142
Figure 7.3 - Dave Barduhn with his mentor Stan Kenton - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 143
Figure 7.4 – Cline’s mentors Hal Malcolm (left) and Dave Barduhn (right) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 144
Figure 7.5 – Doug Anderson and the McMinnville High School “Twighlighters” - photo courtesy of Doug Anderson ...... 146
Figure 7.6 - The Mountain Home High School Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble (1979 -Lonnie Cline, director). The second vocal jazz ensemble from the Boise Valley to be recognized as a “guest choral ensemble” in the NAJE Educator Journal - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 148
Figure 7.7 - Glen Grant - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 149
Figure 7.8 – The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1981 – Glen Grant, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 153
xiii Figure 7.9 – The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1982 - Glen Grant, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 155
Figure 7.10 - The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1983 - Glen Grant, director) at the Edmonds Community College Soundsation Vocal Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 156
Figure 7.11 - An advertisement for the University of Northern Colorado Jazz Press - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 159
Figure 7.12 - The drummer for the 1989 “Squids” - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 161
Figure 8.1 - Jerry Vevig - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 162
Figure 8.2 – The Capital Singers (1981- Jerry Vevig, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 164
Figures 8.3 – The Capital Singers (1979 - Jerry Vevig, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 164
Figure 8.4 - The Capital Singers Combo (1979 – Jerry Vevig, director) -photos courtesy of the subject reprinted by permission ...... 166
Figure 8.5 – Jerry Vevig works with the 1978 Capital Singers on the feature tune Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone arranged by Dave Barduhn - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 169
Figure 8.6 - The Capital Singers (1983 - Jerry Vevig, director). Curtis Stigers is front and center holding a clarinet -photo courtesy of the subject ...... 170
Figure 8.7 - Linda Schmidt - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 171
Figure 8.8 - The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1983 – Linda Schmidt, Director -photo courtesy of the subject ...... 175
Figures 8.9 - The Capital Singers (1985 - Linda Schmidt, director) perform at an assembly at Capital High School - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 176
Figure 8.10 - The Capital Singers (1986 - Linda Schmidt, Director) at the University Idaho Jazz Festival (upper) and the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival (lower). This figure displays their fall and spring outfits - Photos courtesy of the subject ...... 177
Figure 8.11 - The Capital Singers (1987 - Linda Schmidt, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 180
xiv Figure 8.12 - Dave Cross of Cascade High School in Everett, Washington - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 182
Figure 8.13 - The bass player and drummer for the 1988 Capital Singers - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 184
Figure 8.14 - Two of the many scat singers from Capital High School during Linda Schmidt’s tenure at the school - photos courtesy of the subject ...... 187
Figure 8.15 - The Capital Singers (1988 - Linda Schmidt, director) performing at an assembly at Capital High School. - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 188
Figure 9.1 – Quinn Van Paepeghem - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 189
Figure 9.2 - The Meridian High School New Dimension (1975 - Lonnie Cline, director). Quinn Van Paepeghem is holding his guitar, second from the left in the photo -photo courtesy of the subject ...... 192
Figure 9.3 - The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1981 - Quinn Van Paepeghem, director). - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 195
Figure 9.4 - The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1983 - Quinn Van Paepeghem, director) performing live - photo courtesy of the subject 197
Figure 9.5 - Frank Demiero - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 198
Figure 9.6 - The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1984 – Quinn Van Paepeghem, director) -photo courtesy of the subject ...... 199
Figure 9.7 – Quinn Van Paepeghem’s mentor Byron Gerde (left) pictured with Dave Barduhn. The two worked together at Columbia Basin College in the mid 1980’s. - photo courtesy of Dave Cazier ...... 200
Figure 9.8 - An advertisement for recordings of the “Soundsation” Vocal Jazz Choir as it appeared in the NAJE Educator Journal. - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 202
Figure 9.9 - Paul Olson - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 203
Figure 9.10 - Gene Aitken of the University of Northern Colorado - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 206
Figure 9.11 - The West Junior High Singers (1982 - Paul Olson, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 207
xv Figure 9.12 - The West Junior High Singers (1987 – Paul Olson, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 209
Figure 9.13 – An advertisement promoting early vocal jazz literature – photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 210
Figure 9.14 - The West Junior High School Swing Choir (1990 – Paul Olson, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 214
Figure 10.1 - Rich Lapp - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 215
Figure 10.2 - The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1986 – Rich Lapp, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 218
Figure 10.3 - The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1985 – Rich Lapp, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 220
Figure 10.4 - The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1990 - Rich Lapp, director) - Photo courtesy of the subject ...... 225
Figure 10.5 - Bruce Walker - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 225
Figure 10.6 - The Boise High School Jazz Choir (Bruce Walker, director - 1985) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 227
Figure 10.7 – Sue Hough-Bock - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 228
Figure 10.8 - The Boise High School High Expectations (1990 - Sue Hough-Block, director pose in front of the Capital building - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 230
Figure 10.9 - Vern Swain - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 232
Figure 10.10 - The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1986 - Vern Swain, director) in performance - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 233
Figure 11.1 – Centennial High School - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 235
Figure 11.2 – Barb Oldenburg - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 236
Figure 11.3 – The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1974 - Vern Swain, director). Barb Oldenburg is the first female to the left on the third riser row - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 238
Figure 11.4 - The Vale High School Swing Choir (1982 – Barb Oldenburg, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 241
xvi Figure 11.5 - The Vale High School Swing Choir (1984 – Barb Oldenburg, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 241
Figure 11.6 - Kenny Kraintz - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 242
Figure 11.7 - The inaugural Centennial High School Jazz Choir (1988, Barb Oldenburg, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 243
Figure 11.8 – An advertisement for Gene Puerling arrangements published by Shawnee Press – photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 245
Figure 11.9 - An advertisement for Kirby Shaw’s book Vocal Jazz Style -photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal ...... 246
Figure 11.10 - Ted Totorica - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 247
Figure 11.11 - The New Dimensions (1988 – Ted Totorica, director) in concert. Photo courtesy of the subject ...... 251
Figure 11.12 - The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1989 – Ted Totorica, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 253
Figure 11.13 – An ad for DJ Records that appeared in the NAJE Journal - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 255
Figure 11.14 - The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1990 -Ted Totorica, director) - photo courtesy of the subject ...... 257
xvii ABSTRACT
The vocal jazz ensemble singing movement that began at Mt. Hood Community
College (Gresham, Oregon) in 1967 reached the public schools of the Boise Valley, in
Southwestern Idaho sometime in the early 1970’s. The first generation of vocal jazz educators in the region were Jerry Vevig, Vern Swain, Moyle Brown, and Lonnie Cline. In an effort to learn the new style, these four directors participated in the burgeoning vocal jazz scene occurring in the Western region of the United States. By the mid 1970’s, vocal jazz ensemble education had become so prevalent in the Boise Valley region that the junior high school directors of the Boise Public School District were programming vocal jazz music and participating in many of the same vocal jazz events as their high school colleagues. These
Junior High school directors included Bruce Walker, Catherine Gilk, Rich Lapp, Sue Hough,
Paul Olson, and Rob Newburn. The 1980’s saw the second generation of prominent vocal jazz singing ensemble directors begin their tenures in the Boise Valley when Glen Grant,
Quinn Van Paepeghem, Linda Schmidt, Ted Totorica, and Barb Oldenburg, continued the tradition of vocal jazz style singing and event participation that their predecessors had initiated throughout the remainder of the era investigated (inception-1990). In the study, each subjects experiences and education in vocal jazz ensemble singing is documented and specific techniques they employed when working with their vocal jazz ensembles are revealed. The literature used by each vocal jazz educator from the Boise valley (1970-
1990) is also exposed, collated, and presented in the document for reference and use by future choral music educators.
xviii CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION: PURPOSES AND PROCEDURES
The vocal jazz ensemble singing movement that began at Mt. Hood Community
College (Gresham, Oregon) in 1967 reached the public schools of the Boise Valley, in
Southwestern Idaho sometime in the early 1970s. The first generation of vocal jazz educators in the region included Jerry Vevig at Capital High School: Vern Swain at Borah
High School of the Boise School District, Moyle Brown at New Plymouth High School in New
Plymouth, Idaho; and Lonnie Cline, who taught at both Mountain Home (Mountain Home,
Idaho) and Meridian (Meridian, Idaho) High Schools. In an effort to learn the new style, these four directors participated in the burgeoning vocal jazz scene occurring in the
Western region of the United States at the time. At festivals and events promoting vocal jazz education early directors of vocal jazz singing ensembles in the Boise Valley region learned the language, and pedagogy of vocal jazz ensemble style singing through three means: observation of other vocal jazz ensembles and solo vocal jazz artist’s performances; consumption of other vocal jazz ensembles and solo vocal jazz artist’s recordings; and performance critique by, and dialogue with, vocal jazz experts of the time. By the mid
1970s, vocal jazz ensemble education had become so prevalent in the Boise Valley region that the junior high school directors of the Boise Public School District were programming vocal jazz music and participating in many of the same vocal jazz events as their high school colleagues. These junior high school directors included Bruce Walker, Cathy Gilk, and Rich Lapp at Fairmont Junior High School: Sue Hough and Paul Olson at West Junior
High School: and Rob Newburn at East Junior High School of the Boise School District. The
1980s saw the second generation of prominent vocal jazz singing ensemble directors begin
1 their tenures in the Boise Valley when Glenn Grant, Quinn Van Paepeghem / Ted Totorica,
Linda Schmidt, and Barb Oldenburg took over at Borah, Meridian, Capital, and Centennial
High Schools respectively; and continued the tradition of vocal jazz style singing and event participation that their predecessors had initiated throughout the remainder of the era investigated (inception-1990). In an effort to codify and preserve this history, this study will focus on the history of the vocal jazz ensemble singing movement in the public schools of the Boise Valley from its inception through the 1989-1990 academic year.
Purpose of the Study
This study documents and presents in historical perspective the establishment, growth, and development of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the public schools of the Boise valley, in Southwestern Idaho, from its inception through the 1989 – 1990 academic year, by focusing on the following research questions:
1. When did vocal jazz ensemble singing begin to appear in the Boise Valley
region, what preceded vocal jazz singing in the public schools of the region,
and what were the circumstances that lead to the growth of vocal jazz
ensemble singing in the region?
2. Who were the teachers of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley
(inception – 1990), where did they teach, and what was their musical and
educational background?
3. Who were the individual vocal jazz educators and professional
artists/groups that had an impact on the directors of vocal jazz ensemble
singing in the Boise Valley, and how did these individuals impact the vocal
jazz ensemble singing instructors of the region?
2 4. What vocal jazz themed festivals/events were the directors and ensembles
from the Boise Valley attending, what were the logistics of the events, and
what were the vocal jazz specific pedagogical advancements learned by
choral educators of the region at these events? How did these
festivals/events lead to the advancement of vocal jazz ensemble singing in
the Boise Valley?
5. What was the physical make-up and yearly logistical structure of a choral
ensemble singing in a vocal jazz style from the Boise Valley region (inception
– 1990)?
6. What were some of the specific vocal jazz rehearsal techniques and
pedagogical tools used by the teachers of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the
Boise Valley (inception-1990)? Where did they learn said techniques and
acquire said materials?
Sources of Data
The materials investigated are located in personal collections of the subjects and academic articles and dissertations. Primary sources for the study included personal interviews with the subjects; and examination of personal memoirs, concert and festival programs, recordings, and other subject owned artifacts of the time and place. Secondary sources included, journal articles and dissertations.
Definition of Terms
A vocal jazz ensemble is a choir that performs vocal jazz literature often while being accompanied by a jazz trio: piano, bass, and drums. The ensemble typically performs in
3 unified outfits, perhaps with a color scheme and applies minimal musically inspired movement in performances.
A swing choir is an ensemble that performs both popular and jazz styles of music with basic staging and light choreography. The group is typically accompanied by an extended rhythm section or accompaniment track, and usually performs in uniform outfits.
A show choir is a choir that performs popular styles of music with a fully staged choreography, lighting, and set pieces. The group appears in unified, often times “glitzy,” costumes and is often musically supported by professionally prepared accompaniment tracks.
Delimitations
This study on vocal jazz ensemble singing in the public schools of the Boise Valley will focus on the following specific educators and their educational settings: Jerry Vevig
(Capital High School), Bruce Walker (Fairmont Junior High School, Lowell Scott Junior High
School, & Meridian High School), Vern Swain (Borah High School), Sue Hough-Block (West
Junior High School & Boise High School), Lonnie Cline (Mountain Home & Meridian High
Schools), Moyle Brown (New Plymouth High School), Cathy Gilk (Fairmont Junior High
School), Rob Newburn (East Junior High School), Glen Grant (Borah High School), Linda
Schmidt (Fairmont Junior High School, Kuna & Capital High Schools), Quinn Van
Paepeghem (Meridian High School), Paul Olson (West Junior High School), Rich Lapp
(Fairmont Junior High School), Ted Totorica (Meridian High School), and Barb Oldenburg
(Centennial High School). This study, while referring to other specific regions of the West made no attempt to report the history of vocal jazz singing in any other region of the United
States of America.
4 Need for the Study
A comprehensive study of the history and progression of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the public schools of the Boise Valley, in Southwestern Idaho, from its inception through the 1989-1990 academic year; is needed, because the research cannon on the history of educationally based vocal jazz singing ensembles is small, containing only three documents. There has also never been a study on the history of the vocal jazz ensemble singing movement told from the perspective of the high school teachers participating in the movement, and as Colin Michael Mason states, “Much can be gained from researching past experiences and the reflections of figures who were ‘in the trenches’ during the formative period of formal jazz education.”1 The pedagogical tools (vocal jazz charts) used by the educators of the time and place, will be re-revealed, compiled, and listed at the end of the document. Future educators could benefit from this list as much of the music has been forgotten or put aside and these once “old” charts could be the “freshest” arrangements at vocal jazz festivals around the country. Finally, there has never been a study on the history of music education in the public schools of Idaho, Southwestern Idaho, or the Boise Valley.
This study will serve to document a small part of Idaho’s rich history in outstanding music education.
Procedures of the Study
The following procedures were employed:
1. preparation of a bibliography and collection of the data
2. organization and classification of the data into categories:
1 Colin Michael Mason, “A Comparative and Historical Survey of Four Seminal Figures in the History of Jazz Education” (DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2005), 3, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, (3165100).
5 3. organization and composition of the dissertation.
Preparation of the bibliography was based on (a) a survey of related research; (b) a survey of materials and files available in the personal collections of the vocal jazz singing ensemble educators of the Boise Valley (1970 – 1990); and (c) interviews with educators of vocal jazz singing ensembles in the Boise Valley and surrounding area (1970 – 1990).
Procedures used to investigate each research question (listed above) are described below.
The purpose of the research question about the origins of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley was to document the specific dates and curriculum offerings which preceded, and circumstances which lead to, vocal jazz ensemble singing in the area.
Personal interviews and correspondence with participants in the Boise Valley vocal jazz ensemble singing movement (inception – 1990) were employed to obtain this information.
The purpose of the research question about the early teachers of vocal jazz type ensembles and their backgrounds was to document what location(s) the teachers were educating in during the period (inception – 1990), as well as discover the circumstances that lead to their teaching appointments and engagement in the idiom of vocal jazz singing.
Treatment of each director’s background focused on early musical influences and musical education prior to vocal jazz ensemble singing direction. Information about the musical and professional backgrounds of directors was obtained through personal interview and correspondence with the individuals.
The purpose of the research question about which vocal jazz artists/groups and individual educators influenced the vocal jazz ensemble singing teachers of the Boise Valley was to identify and document the specific vocal jazz influences that impacted each
6 individual teacher’s experimentation in the style. The specific vocal jazz influences on the pedagogical practice of vocal jazz singing director’s Vevig, Walker, Swain, Hough-Block,
Cline, Brown, Newburn, Gilk, Grant, Schmidt, Van Paepeghem, Olson, Lapp, Totorica, and
Oldenburg, was obtained through personal interview and correspondence with the individuals.
The purpose of the research question relating to vocal jazz themed festivals/events attended by director’s and ensembles of vocal jazz singing ensembles in the Boise Valley from (inception -1990) was to document the festivals/events attended yearly by each school/director, as well as to clarify the pedagogical influences each event had on the director and their ensemble’s vocal jazz style presentations. Information on the events attended, and particular vocal jazz influences on the pedagogical practices of vocal jazz singing directors from the Boise Valley (Inception-1990) was obtained through personal interviews and correspondence with study participants.
The purpose of the research question pertaining to the logistical and musical makeup of a vocal jazz singing ensemble from the Boise Valley was to document the physical makeup (including accompaniment) and yearly routine of each individual conductor’s vocal jazz ensemble. Information on the physical make-up and yearlong logistical procedures of ensembles was obtained through personal interviews and correspondence with director’s Vevig, Walker, Swain, Hough-Block, Cline, Brown,
Newburn, Gilk, Grant, Schmidt, Van Paepeghem, Olson, Lapp, Totorica, and Oldenburg.
The purpose of the research question on specific techniques and pedagogy used by vocal jazz singing ensemble directors in the Boise Valley (inception – 1990) was to uncover specific techniques employed by conductors in the areas of interpretation of literature,
7 rhythm section, and vocal improvisation. It was also used to document the vocal jazz repertoire ensembles were singing in the time and place. Information on pedagogical techniques and tools used by the conductors of vocal jazz singing ensembles in the Boise
Valley was obtained through personal interviews with study participants.
Organization of the Study
Chapter 1: Introduction: Purposes and Procedures.
In this chapter, the purpose, need, procedures, and the organization of the study are presented.
Chapter 2: Historical Backdrop
This chapter provides a summary of some of the existing literature documenting the history of vocal jazz ensemble singing and jazz/vocal jazz education in the United States prior to 1970.
Chapter 3: Capital Senior and Fairmont Junior High Schools - Jerry Vevig and Bruce Walker,
Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Capital Senior and Fairmont Junior High Schools (Boise, Idaho) during the tenures of founding vocal jazz educators Jerry Vevig (Capital High School) and Bruce Walker (Fairmont Junior High
School). The school’s initial engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented; and Vevig and Walker’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
8 Chapter 4: Borah Senior and West Junior High Schools – Vern Swain and Susan Hough –
Block, Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Borah Senior &
West Junior High Schools (Boise, Idaho) during the tenures of founding vocal jazz educators
Vern Swain (Borah High School) and Sue Hough-Block (West Junior High School). The school’s initial engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented; and Swain & Hough-Block’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
Chapter 5: Meridian and New Plymouth Senior High Schools – Lonnie Cline and Moyle
Brown, Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Meridian
(Meridian, Idaho) and New Plymouth (New Plymouth, Idaho) Senior High Schools during the tenures of founding vocal jazz educators Lonnie Cline (Meridian High School) and
Moyle Brown (New Plymouth High School). The schools’ initial engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented, and Cline and Brown’s early musical training and influences, teaching history, vocal jazz background, and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
Chapter 6: East and Fairmont Junior High Schools – Rob Newburn and Cathy Gilk, Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at East and
Fairmont Junior High Schools (Boise, Idaho) during the tenures of vocal jazz educators Rob
9 Newburn (East Junior High) and Cathy Gilk (Fairmont Junior High). The school’s initial engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented; and Newburn and Gilk’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
Chapter 7: Mountain Home and Borah Senior High Schools – Lonnie Cline and Glen Grant,
Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Mountain Home
(Mountain Home, Idaho) and Borah (Boise, Idaho) Senior High Schools during the tenures of vocal jazz educators Lonnie Cline (Mountain Home High School) and Glen Grant (Borah
High School). The schools’ initial engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented; and Glen Grant’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
Chapter 8: Capital High School – Jerry Vevig and Linda Schmidt, Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Capital High
School (Boise, Idaho) during the tenures of vocal jazz educators Jerry Vevig (from 1978 –
1983) and Linda Schmidt. The school’s engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented; and Linda
10 Schmidt’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
Chapter 9: Meridian Senior and West Junior High Schools – Quinn Van Paepeghem and Paul
Olson, Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Meridian Senior
(Meridian, Idaho) and West Junior (Boise, Idaho) High Schools during the tenures of vocal jazz educators Quinn Van Paepeghem (Meridian High School) and Paul Olson (West Junior
High School). The schools initial engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented; and Van Paepeghem and
Olson’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
Chapter 10: Boise and Meridian Senior and Fairmont Junior High Schools – Bruce Walker,
Sue Hough–Block, Vern Swain, and Rich Lapp, Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Boise and
Meridian Senior and Fairmont Junior High Schools during the tenures of vocal jazz educators Rich Lapp (Fairmont Junior High School), Bruce Walker and Sue Hough-Block
(Boise High School), and Vern Swain (Meridian High School). The schools’ engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented; and Rich Lapp’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed.
11 Chapter 11: Meridian and Centennial Senior High Schools – Barb Oldenburg and Ted
Totorica, Directors
This chapter presents a summary of the vocal jazz singing history at Meridian and
Centennial Senior High Schools during the tenures of vocal jazz educators Ted Totorica
(Meridian High School) and Barb Oldenburg (Centennial High School). The schools’ engagement in the style, logistical makeup and yearly schedule of the ensemble, literature and pedagogy used in performance and practice, and events attended throughout the time period is documented. Oldenburg and Totorica’s early musical training and influences, teaching history and vocal jazz background and acquisition of content knowledge will also be discussed.
Chapter 12. Summary and Conclusion; and Implications for Future Research
A summary of the vocal jazz singing in the public schools of the Boise Valley from its inception through the 1989-1990 academic year and recommendations/implications for future research is presented.
12 CHAPTER TWO
HISTORICAL BACKDROP
Jazz and Early Jazz Solo Singing (1920s and 1930s)
In 1987, the United States House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill proposed by Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. to define jazz as a unique form of
American music, stating, “that jazz is hereby designated as a rare and valuable national
American treasure to which we should devote attention, support, and resources to make certain it is preserved, understood and promulgated.”2 The musical genre of jazz originated in New Orleans, Louisiana during the 1890s. From its onset, jazz comprised a combination of different musical heritages, and over the past 100 years the genre has expanded to include the styles of: Ragtime, Blues, New Orleans, Swing, Bebop, Afro-Cuban jazz, Cool Jazz
(West Coast), Hard Bop, Modal Jazz, Free Jazz, Soul Jazz, and Jazz-Rock Fusion.3 Jazz, according to scholar, Travis Jackson, "is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice, 'and being open to different musical possibilities."4
The jazz and blues genres were born in the same region (deep south), progressed around the same time (1900-1930), and have influenced each other throughout their histories. In the early 1920s, the first vocal jazz recordings were releases by blues singers
Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith (see fig. 2.1.). The two sang a style called the urban blues, as it existed in larger cities, and the performance of the style was more elaborate and codified
2 Library of Congress, “Legislation Sponsored or Cosponsored by John Conyers Jr,” Congress. GOV, Accessed April 27, 2016. 3 A Passion for Jazz! “Jazz Timeline,” apassion4jazz.net, 1998-2016, Accessed April 27, 2016,
13 than its predecessor the country blues. Both Rainey and Smith performed and recorded with another of the first jazz vocalists, Louis Armstrong (see fig. 2.1). Throughout prohibition, Armstrong played trumpet in the professional jazz ensembles lead by Joe
“King” Oliver and Fletcher Henderson. He introduced the American public to scat singing with his 1926 recording of the tune Heebie Jeebies with his jazz group the Hot Five.5
Fig. 2.1. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong - photos courtesy of Wikimedia (Rainey & Smith) & Library of Congress (Armstrong - Gottleib Jazz Public Domain Photos).
5 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992), 6, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
14 History of Professional Vocal Jazz Groups (1930-1940)
The first professional vocal jazz groups began to appear on radio programs, films, and recordings in the early 1930s, when the offbeat swing style proliferated by big bands was emerging as the dominant form of American popular music. Vocal jazz trio the Boswell
Sisters, Martha, Connee, and Helvetia (see fig. 2.2), grew up in New Orleans and were acquainted with and heavily influenced by many of the early jazz players in the city. Their groundbreaking vocal jazz recordings for Brunswick records from 1931 to 1935 featured arrangements crafted by bandleader Glen Miller, who transformed popular songs into extended jazz compositions that were almost unrecognizable.6
Fig. 2.2. The Boswell Sisters - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain).
The male quartet the Mills Brothers (see fig. 2.3) also recorded for Brunswick records. Their 1931 recording of the tune “Tiger Rag” contains the earliest representation
6 Dawn Elizabeth Brooks, “Vocal Jazz Repertoire From 1920-1960: A Selection of Unpublished Repertoire by the Mills Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, and the Hi-Lo’s for use in Classical Choral Programming” (DMA diss., University of Southern California, 2009), 2, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
15 of vocal improvisation by a vocal jazz group. All four brothers, John C. Junior, Herbert,
Harry Flood, and Donald, sang while John C. accompanied them on guitar and they often imitated a seven-piece orchestra in performances with one brother representing the four- piece rhythm section and the other three a trumpet and two saxophones. The “Ink Spots” were another all male quartet who performed the “Tiger Rag,” complete with vocal improvisation, in the late 1930s (see fig. 2.4). Their sound was a hybrid of instrumental jazz, vaudeville, and street-corner a cappella groups from their native Indianapolis. Their music influenced the rhythm and blues and rock and roll genres of the 1950s. The members of the ensemble, Hoppy Jones, Deek Watson, Jerry Daniels, and Charlie Fuqua, accompanied themselves on three guitars (Deek, Jerry, & Charlie) and a cello (Hoppy) making them the first vocal jazz-type group to accompany themselves while also singing.7
Fig. 2.3. The Mills Brothers - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain).
7 Bruce Crowther and Mike Pinfold, 1997, Singing Jazz: The Singer’s and Their Styles, San Farncisco: Miller Freeeman Books. 224 .
16
Fig. 2.4. The Ink Spots - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain).
Formed in the 1920s to play for high school proms, the “Merry Macs “were one of the first vocal jazz type recording ensembles to use close-knit jazz harmonies and style in their arrangements of tunes like “Sentimental Journey” (1945). The mixed quartet was comprised of three brothers (Judd, Joe, & Ted McMichael) and one woman (Cheri McKay
1933-1935, Helen Carroll 1936 -1938, Mary Lou Cook 1939 – 1941, and Marjory Garland
1942-1964 (see fig. 2.5). The group had a style and sound that was a synthesis of early dance bandleader and violinist Paul Whiteman and Barbershop music and they influenced several of their contemporaries in vocal jazz ensemble singing, including the vocal group associated with the Glen Miller Orchestra, the Modernaires (Hal Dickinson, Chuck
Goldstein, Bill Conway, Ralph Brewster, & Paula Kelly; see fig. 2.6).8
8 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992), 6, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses..
17
Fig. 2.5. The Merry-Macs - photo downloaded from www.singers.com.
Fig. 2.6. The Modernaires - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain).
18 History of Professional Vocal Jazz Groups (1940 – 1955)
During World War II, while the jazz era was reaching its peak in America, professional orchestras began including vocal jazz groups on their live radio show appearances and performances, as well as in recordings. In 1940, the vocal quartet the Pied
Pipers (Jo Stafford, John Huddleston, Chuck Lowry, & Billy Wilson; see fig. 2.7) were linked with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and the ensemble’s current soloist, Frank Sinatra, when they combined to record 10 songs that made the “Hit Parade.”9
Fig. 2.7. The Pied Pipers - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain).
Solo jazz vocalists also became a regular fixture in professional big band performances of during the 1940s as they served as intermediaries between the audience and the instrumentalists and provided each band with a specific personality. Some of the
9 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992), 6, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
19 famous orchestra and soloist pairings during the swing era were the Benny Goodman
Orchestra and Peggy Lee, The Chick Webb Band and Ella Fitzgerald, the Count Basie
Orchestra with Billie Holiday and Jimmy Rushing, and the Stan Kenton Orchestra and June
Christy (see fig. 2.8).10
Fig. 2.8. June Christy performing with the Stan Kenton Orchestra - photo courtesy of Library of Congress (Gottleib Jazz Public Domain Photos).
In the mid-1940s, the jazz genre began moving away from swing to the more melodically challenging and improvisatory style of bebop. The compositions of the bebop style were more suited for performance by smaller jazz combos with a few soloists rather than large big bands and this lead to the rise of the solo jazz artists including horn players
Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie; and vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Joe
Williams, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day, Carmen McRae, and Mel Torme (see fig. 2.9).
10 Alyn Shipton, 2007, A New History of Jazz, New York: Continuum. 437-439
20
Fig. 2.9. Jazz Solo Vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Bille Holiday, Joe Williams, Anita O’Day, Carmen McRae, and Mel Torme. Photos courtesy of Wikimedia (Sinatra and McRae) and Gotlieb (Fitzgerald, Vaughan, and Torme). O’day downladed from www.radio3.rai.it.
21 The bebop style did not lend itself easily to vocal jazz ensemble singing and early post-war vocal jazz ensembles sang material reflecting the pre-war era while providing background services to or serving as opening acts for soloists, recording commercial jingles and delivering their own featured recordings and performances.11 Mel Torme did much of the arranging for his quintet, the Meltones (see fig. 2.10), and he took advantage of the fifth ensemble voice by employing more innovative and sophisticated harmonies such as flattened 9ths, llths, and 13ths in the arrangements performed by the ensemble. Due in large part to Torme’s solo career, the ensemble officially disbanded in 1946, but Torme often reformed the group for recording projects and performances throughout the 1950s.12
Fig. 2.10. Mel Torme and the Meltones - photo downloaded from www.singers.com.
The sounds of the Stan Kenton Orchestra influenced the post-war vocal jazz quartet the Four Freshmen (Ross & Don Barbour, Bob Flanigan, & Hal Kratzsch; see fig. 2.11) and
11 Gregory Amerind, “The Collegiate Vocal Jazz Ensemble: An Historical and Current Perspective on the Development, Current State, And Future Direction of the Genre” (DMA diss., Arizona State University, 2013),10, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. 12 Will Friedwald, 1990, Jazz Singing, New York: Macmillan, 181-184.
22 Kenton’s support lead to the recording and distribution of the group’s first hit, “It’s A Blue
World,” in 1952. The ensemble was the first professional vocal jazz group to sing and play simultaneously in performances and they inspired another highly influential male quartet from the early 1950s, the Hi-Lo’s (see fig. 2.12). Gene Puerling formed the Hi-Lo’s in 1953 along with Bob Strasen (who was later replaced by Don Shelton), Bob Morse, and Clark
Burroughs, while living in Los Angeles and working as a studio singer. Born and raised in
Wisconsin, Puerling taught himself to arrange by listening to other vocal ensembles and over the years his arranging style evolved from listening to multiple styles of music including symphonic and contemporary works, and everything in between. The Hi-Lo’s were often accompanied by big bands and performed and recorded an extensive repertoire, including a mixture of jazz standards, folk songs, and show tunes. They disbanded in 1964.13
Fig. 2.11. The Four Freshmen - photo downloaded at independent.co.uk.
13 Gregory Amerind, “The Collegiate Vocal Jazz Ensemble: An Historical and Current Perspective on the Development, Current State, And Future Direction of the Genre” (DMA diss., Arizona State University, 2013), 16, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
23
Fig. 2.12. The Hi-Lo’s - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain).
History of Professional Vocal Jazz Groups (1955 – 1970)
The jazz style of bebop, which had flourished among instrumental jazz artists since the mid 1940s, finally made its way to the vocal world by the late 1950s through a vocalese technique developed by Eddie Jefferson, Jon Hendricks, and Dave Lambert. A vocalese artist sets words to recorded improvised solo lines and composed instrumental melodies. No one did it better than Hendricks and Lambert. They developed and promoted the style throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s in live performances and on seven recordings with their professional vocal jazz trio (Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross; see fig. 2.13). The ensemble also began experimenting with a new studio technique called over-dubbing on their first album Sing a Song of Basie in 1957. 14
14 Alyn Shipton, 2007, A New History of Jazz, New York: Continuum. 677-678. Will Friedwald, 1990, Jazz Singing, New York: Macmillan, 242-250.
24
Fig. 2.13. Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross - photo downloaded from jazztalk.net.
Overdubbing is a process by which recording technicians layer several tracks of identical recorded material on top of each other in order for the finished product to sound like it has a fuller musical texture (i.e., multiple layers). Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross used the technique on the Count Basie album in order to sound more like the Count Basie
Orchestra. In 1959, Mimi Perrin titled her French-based vocal jazz ensemble Les Double Six
(The Double Six of Paris; see fig. 2.14) as an allusion to the overdubbing technique. Known for their first-rate scat singing, the sextet performed a repertoire featuring music from the swing and bebop eras. They recorded four albums between 1959 and their break-up in
1966. The group was nominated for a Grammy in the best vocal group performance
25 category for their album The Double Six of Paris Sing Ray Charles in 1964, but they were outranked by the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night.15
Fig. 2.14. The Double Six of Paris - photo downloaded from jmeshel.com.
In the early 1960s, jazz instrumentalists began to move the jazz idiom even further from the American mainstream culture when the bebop genre relinquished to the modal, free, and soul jazz forms. In 1962, Ward Swingle, who was one of the founding members of
Les Double Six, broke from the ensemble to form his own group, the Swingle Singers (see fig. 2.15). The octet started as studio-session singers and recorded their first solo album in
1963. The Swingle Singers were specifically known for singing classical compositions by
Bach, Mozart, and others, arranged by Swingle. The group was accompanied in performance and recordings by a bassist and a drummer playing jazz groove
15 Will Friedwald, 1990, Jazz Singing, New York: Macmillan, 242-250. .
26 understructures. The octets lead soprano was Christiane Legrand, famous French musical composer, conductor, arranger and jazz pianist Michel Legrand’s sister. Shortly after
Legrand left the ensemble in 1972, the group disbanded and Swingle moved to London in
1973 where he formed Swingle II.16
Fig. 2.15. The Swingle Singers - photo courtesy of Wikimedia (public domain).
After the Hi-Lo’s break up in 1964, Gene Puerling remained in Los Angeles until the early 1970s then he moved to Chicago to join former Hi-Lo’s member Don Shelton in a jingle recording team they called the Singers Unlimited (see fig. 2.16). Puerling, Shelton, and fellow team members Len Dressler and Bonnie Herman decided on the group’s name, as they wanted to appear as musically versatile as possible in order to stay viable in the
16 Gregory Amerind, “The Collegiate Vocal Jazz Ensemble: An Historical and Current Perspective on the Development, Current State, And Future Direction of the Genre” (DMA diss., Arizona State University, 2013), 28. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
27 rapidly changing popular music scene of the early 1970s. Puerling’s multiple arrangements for the ensemble earned him a reputation as one of the best arrangers for vocal groups in the world. He would go on to arrange for the most commercially popular and prolific vocal jazz ensemble of the late 1970s and 1980s, the Manhattan Transfer (see fig. 2.17). Between
1972 and 1985, the Singers Unlimited recorded 14 albums on the MPS label and their sound became an example for the budding vocal jazz ensemble education movement in the
United States. 17
Fig. 2.16. The Singers Unlimited - photo downloaded from www.singers.com.
17 Gregory Amerind, “The Collegiate Vocal Jazz Ensemble: An Historical and Current Perspective on the Development, Current State, And Future Direction of the Genre” (DMA diss., Arizona State University, 2013), 18. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
28
Fig. 2.17. The Manhattan Transfer -photo downloaded from songbook1.files.wordpress.com.
History of Jazz Education (1920 – 1970)
Jazz education started at the beginning of the “Jazz Age” in the 1920s, when instrumental jazz-type ensembles began developing outside of the traditional school band programs at a few American high schools and universities. As jazz music was the most popular and prevalent music in America between 1920 and the end of World War II (1945), these early student-run and organized dance/swing bands performed often in their local communities. In the 1930s, A. R. McAllister at Joliet Township High School in Joliet, Illinois and Ralph Rush at Cleveland Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio were two of the earliest band educators to form stage bands at their institutions. These non-curricular
29 ensembles consisted of students from their regular school bands and served as a link between the school and the community. 18
After World War II, the rock and roll genre took over the American airwaves and television screens, while the jazz genre developed from the swing style into bebop and became music for aficionados and connoisseurs. Despite what was going on in American popular music culture, the jazz education movement expanded in the 1950s due to an influx of jazz oriented musicians who after their military service went into the educational field. Their expertise in the jazz style and wish to teach it to their students were the catalysts which lead to jazz/stage bands being included in the curriculum as an adjunct ensemble of secondary school band programs throughout the United States beginning in the mid 1940s. The early educational stage band (dance band) movement grew as ensembles began participating in stage band competitions, which became prominent throughout the United States after the University of North Texas initiated the first in
1948.19
Jazz education also legitimized itself from the late 1940s through the 1950s when a few jazz educators from various parts of the country developed formal collegiate jazz curricula using their jazz ensemble as the core. Those educators included Lawrence Berk and John LaPorta at the Berklee School of Music, Robert McDonald at Los Angeles City
College, Jerry Coker at Sam Houston State University and at the University of Miami, Edwin
“Buddy” Baker at Indiana University and at the University of Northern Colorado, David
Baker at Indiana University, John Garvey at the University of Illinois, Ralph Mutchler at
18 Bryce Luty, “Jazz Education’s Struggle for Acceptance,” Music Educators Journal 69. no. 3 (November 1982): 38. 19 Michael L. Mark, “In and Out of the Mainstream,” Music Educators Journal 63, no. 3 (November 1975): 64&65.
30 Olympic College (Washington), Matt Betton at Kansas State University, and Gene Hall and
Leon Breeden at North Texas State University. The University of North Texas became the first institution of higher learning to offer a degree in jazz in 1947 and the degree’s initiator, Gene Hall, headed the first National Stage Band Camps associated with professional band leader Stan Kenton beginning in July of 1959 (see fig. 2.18). The Stage
Band Camps ran for 25 years and were the first example of the professional jazz world assisting the growth of jazz education in the public schools. 20
Fig. 2.18. Stan Kenton - photo courtesy of Library of Congress (Gottleib Jazz Public Domain Photos).
The jazz curriculum that started developing during the 1950s lead to an education in the jazz genre for a whole new generation of secondary school teachers. During the
1960s, the number of jazz bands offered in American secondary schools tripled from 5,000
20 Charles Stuber, “The Summer Jazz Clinics: A Memoir and a Salute,” NAJE Educator Journal 14, no.4 (Apr/May 1982): 17&18.
31 to 15,000. Institutions of higher learning began to include jazz teachers on their faculties in the 1960s and the number of collegiate jazz ensembles grew from 30 in 1960 to 450 by
1969. The addition of jazz arranging courses to the curriculums at universities also lead to an increase of repertoire for stage/jazz band ensembles to perform as many directors and their students were arranging repertoire for the jazz band idiom. Two other events occurred during the late 1960s which legitimized jazz in the school music curricula; The
Tanglewood Symposium (1967) and the subsequent formation of their affiliated organization the National Association of Jazz Educators in 1968. 21
History of Jazz Education – The Tanglewood Symposium
and The National Association of Jazz Educators
The Music Educators National Conference hosted the Tanglewood Symposium from
July 23rd to August 2nd, 1967 in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. The radical societal changes including an increased tolerance for the tastes of the younger generation, which occurred during the 1960s, prompted MENC to sponsor the event in order to determine the role of music education in contemporary American society. The result of the symposium was the
Tanglewood Declaration, which recommended that music of all periods, styles, forms, and cultures be part of the core curriculum in American schools. “The musical repertory should be expanded to involve music of our time in its rich variety, including currently popular teenage music and avant-garde music, American folk music, and the music of other cultures.” The support for popular music professed by the “Music Educators National
Conference” through the Tanglewood Declaration prompted the organization to recognize
21 Frank Ferriano, “A Study of the School Jazz Ensemble in American Music Education,”NAJE Educator 7, no.3 (Feb./Mar. 1975): 4-6 & 18.
32 the newly formed “National Association of Jazz Educators”(NAJE, see fig. 2.19) as an associate organization in 1968. 22
Fig. 2.19. The Founding of NAJE - Participants left to right M.E. Hall, Charles L. Gary, Louis G. Wersen, Stan Kenton, John Roberts and Matt Betton - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
The partnership of the two organizations was unavoidable as the first article of the
Constitution for the “National Association of Jazz Educators” organization, “to foster and promote the understanding and appreciation for jazz and popular music and its artistic performance,” aligned exactly with the Tanglewood recommendations for popular music to be used in educational settings. The second article of the NAJE constitution, “to lend assistance and guidance in the organization and development of jazz curricula in schools and colleges to include stage bands, and ensembles of all kinds,” paved the way for several types of popular vocal ensembles to develop in the public schools; the most popular being, show, swing, and vocal jazz choirs. 23
22 C.L. Gary and M.L. Marks, A History of American Music Education (Plymouth, United Kingdom: The National Association for Music Education, 2007), 364-366. 23 Matt Betton, “Articles of NAJE Organization,” NAJE Newsletter 1 no. 1 (1968): 1.
33 The National Association of Jazz Educators assisted in the education of early popular vocal ensembles beginning in 1969 when the “Choral Materials Section” (see fig. 2.20) became the first regular column on popular/jazz choral ensembles to appear in the NAJE
Educator Newsletter (Vol. 2: 1). The column featured a literature list compiled by choral editor Dana Wells. In each month’s “Choral Materials Section,” Wells listed the Title,
Composer-Arranger, Publisher, Vocal Style, and Voicing for each submitted arrangement.
There were often over 24 different “Vocal Styles” of music represented on any given list.24
Fig. 2.20. An Example of the NAJE Journal “Choral Page.” (Feb/Mar 1973 – Vo. 5, No.3) - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
24 Dana F. Wells.”Choral Materials,” NAJE Educator Newsletter 2, no.1, (April/May 1969): 20-23.
34 The National Association of Jazz Educators began publishing articles to promote popular singing ensembles and provide guidance to their directors beginning in the
February of 1971 issue of the NAJE Educator newsletter. The earliest articles identified the types of popular vocal ensembles occurring in the early 1970s as “Swing Choirs,” “Stage
Choirs,” “Jazz Choirs,” and “Show Choirs.” The first article on vocal jazz education to appear in the NAJE Educator Journal was simply titled, “The Northwest Swing Choir Festival.” 25 (A full list of vocal jazz articles published in the NAJE Journal from 1971 through 1990 can be found in Appendix A on page 272).
Fig. 2.21. Hal Malcolm - photo courtesy of the subject’s family.
25 Robert R. Kull, “The Northwest Swing Choir Festival,” NAJE Educator Journal 3, no. 3 (Feb/Mar 1971): 4-6.
35 History of Vocal Jazz Education - Hal Malcolm
In the fall of 1967, the same year that Music Educators National Conference embraced the new National Association of Jazz Educators organization, Hal Malcolm (see fig. 2.21) formed the first educational vocal jazz ensemble at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon. Malcolm, innovator and founder of vocal jazz education, grew up in foster homes throughout the Pacific Northwest. He learned jazz style by listening to recordings of the greats of the idiom and attending live performances by musicians traveling through the Seattle area during and after World War II. Hearing a recording of
Always performed by Dave Lambert and his “Bop Vocal Chorus” sparked Malcolm’s interest in vocal jazz in 1947. The new and unique sound of a larger chorus accompanied by a jazz combo (piano, bass, & drums) sparked his imagination. Twenty years later, this musical combination (large choir with trio accompaniment) provided the foundation and sound ideal of the vocal jazz education movement occurring in the Northwest.26
After several years of teaching band, orchestra, and choir, and playing professionally, Mt. Hood Community College hired Malcolm in the fall of 1967. He was excited about the appointment because the college president desired “creativity and innovation…over and beyond the required music courses.”27 The president’s interests fit
Malcolm’s vision of starting the first collegiate vocal jazz ensemble, and immediately after
26 Jessica Bissett Perea, “Voices From the Jazz Widerness: Locating Pacific Northwest Jazz Choir Culture,” In Jazz/Not Jazz, edited by David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Ira Goldmark (Berkley: University of California Press Berkley, 2012) 220. 27 Hal Malcolm. “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of “Jazz” in Vocal-Ensemble Music Education.” Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998, 6.
36 being hired, he began recruiting by twisting the arms of instrumentalists to make up the combo, so he could start a pilot course of 16 voices named ”Swing Choir” (see fig. 2.22). 28
Fig. 2.22. The Mount Hood Community College Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Hal Malcolm, director) - photo courtesy of subject.
Malcolm also began the first vocal jazz ensemble festival at Mt. Hood Community
College in the spring of the academic year 1967-1968; the title of the event was, “Swing
Choir Festival.” The first Northwest Swing Choir Festival occurred on May 18th, 1968, as part of a Creative Arts Festival presented to the public from May 17-24 by the Creative Arts
Division of Mt. Hood Community College. The festival included an art exhibit, a swing choir concert, a stage band concert, a film festival, two theater presentations, a Rowan and
Martin style “laugh-in,” and a panel discussion about “Morality and the Arts.” The ensemble and festival at Mt. Hood Community College adorned the moniker “swing” rather than
“jazz” for their first four years for two reasons. The college avoided the “jazz” label in the title of the ensemble and festival because jazz was still a negative and controversial term
28 Hal Malcolm, “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of ‘Jazz’ in Vocal-Ensemble Music Education,” Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998, 6.
37 and the college did not want to risk losing voter approval, as it did not have a tax base.
While, Malcolm felt the term “swing” was familiar to directors as he had sung in a “Swing
Choir” during his youth and local Portland, Oregon area, choral teachers knew the label as several high school specialty ensembles in the Vancouver, Washington area were called
“Swing Choir” during the 1960s.29
The first competitive festival and group of their kind in the United States did not, therefore, include vocal jazz in their titles until 1972. In his memoir, Malcolm credits his co- founder in vocal jazz education, Waldo King, (see fig. 2.23) for convincing him to adopt the label:
In 1971, Waldo King informed me that he had renamed his group the “Roosevelt
High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble.” For me, the word “jazz” was never a title problem,
but I was reluctant to give up the title part “choir” because of its identity with vocal
directors. At one time, I seriously considered “jazz choir” as suggested in an early
1971 edition of the NAJE Educator Journal. Waldo reasoned, however, that the word
“ensemble” would best identify voices and instruments, while the word choir was
not so inclusive. I concurred. At that moment in time, my “Swing Choir” became the
Mt. Hood “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” and the 1972 festival brochure read, the “5th annual
Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival.30
29 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992), 102 and 103, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. 30 Hal Malcolm, “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of “Jazz” in Vocal-Ensemble Music Education,” Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998, 6.
38
Fig. 2.23. Waldo King - photo courtesy of the subject.
History of Vocal Jazz Education- Waldo King
Born and raised in Centralia, Washington, Waldo King first heard jazz through
“Listening to 78 RPM Records.”31 He explains that his desire to teach jazz, “had roots in the fact that I grew up with it. As a teenager in the forties, I fell in love with the music of Glenn
Miller, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, and Stan Kenton. It was exhilarating and became the foundation of my years of playing professionally as well as teaching.” Waldo
King also played saxophone during his youth (see fig. 2.24), during the beginning of his carreer at Roosevelt High School (1969-1970), King formed the first vocal jazz program in the Seattle public schools. He felt the need to start a vocal jazz ensemble because, as he puts it, “The success of my stage band in learning the characteristics of jazz made it naturally desirable for my swing choir to enjoy the same experience.” Before Roosevelt, King had
31 Waldo King, Interview by author, Transcript, February 2016.
39 established himself as a leader in instrumental jazz education while serving at: Thorp,
Goldendale, Aberdeen, Garfield, and Franklin high schools, in Washington State.32
Fig. 2.24. Waldo King playing saxophone during his youth (second saxophone from the left) - photo courtesy of the subject.
During his 13 years at Roosevelt High School the “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” (see fig.
2.25) consistently took top honors at the largest vocal jazz ensemble festivals in the country. King felt that his major impact on the vocal jazz idiom was, “the introduction of improvisation to vocal jazz. Lyrical improvisation in tunes like “Sunday” and scatting in straight ahead jazz like “Everybody’s Boppin.” When asked, “What made your group a vocal jazz ensemble?”/”What musical qualities and characteristics did they possess that made you feel like the title was accurate?” King replied, “The application of jazz characteristics in vocal performance, such as: straight tone on moving lines, vibrato on held notes,
32 Waldo King, Interview by Brendan McGovern, Transcript, January 2016.
40 exaggerated dynamic changes, solo features in tunes like ‘Please Don’t Talk About Me When
I’m Gone’ and improvisation.”33
Fig. 2.25. The Roosevelt High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Waldo King, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Malcolm and King met for the first time sometime in the late 1940s when they both attended college at The Central Washington College of Education (currently known as
Central Washington University) in Ellensburg, Washington. While at Central, they played together in the jazz band (the Sweeceans) under the direction of Bert Christensen. The highly influential Christensen had a so-called “old school” belief that a complete musician was an accomplished instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, and teacher. Twenty years later, the versatility that Christensen taught and encouraged in his students had a significant
33 Waldo King, Interview by author, Transcript, February 2016.
41 impact on the vocal education world, when Hal Malcolm and Waldo King set out to make vocal ensembles sound like jazz bands. 34
History of Vocal Jazz Education – The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival
Prior to his ensemble competing in the Northwest Swing Choir/Vocal Jazz Festival,
King served on the adjudicators panel at the first annual Northwest Swing Choir Festival in
1968. The earliest adjudicators for the flagship festival of the movement were almost exclusively highly successful jazz band directors. The instrumental jazz world not only affected the choice of adjudicators for the festival, it also affected the festival’s adjudication form. In fact, an instrumental-based article heavily influenced Malcolm’s creation of the festival’s adjudication sheet. Hal writes, “I had studied Dr. M. E. Hall’s ‘A Basis for Jazz
Adjudication,’ (NAJE, Dec 1969) and adapted his ideas for an improved swing choir adjudication form.” The ten adapted adjudication standards consisted of: (a) blend-balance,
(b) intonation, (c) color-texture-fresh ideas, (d) time-rhythm, (e) precision, (f) dynamics,
(g) interpretation-phrasing, (h) swing concepts-jazz excitement, (i) presentation- communication, and (j) arrangements-choice of material.35
According to Malcolm, he founded the Northwest Swing Choir Festival in order to: (a) provide an opportunity for swing choirs to participate in a festival similar to the format presently afforded stage bands, (b) stimulate and foster great interest in vocal swing music, and (c) to provide for an exchange of vocal concepts which would be of benefit to students
34 Jessica Bissett Perea, “Voices from the Jazz Widerness: Locating Pacific Northwest Jazz Choir Culture,” In Jazz/Not Jazz University of California Press Berkley, California 2012, 219. 35 Hal Malcolm. “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of ‘Jazz’ in Vocal-Ensemble Music Education.” Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998, 8.
42 and directors. In the first article on vocal jazz education to appear in a NAJE Educator
Journal, entitled “The Northwest Swing Choir Festival,” Malcolm defined a “swing choir” at the Northwest Swing Choir Festival as an ensemble containing between 10 and 24 vocalists with rhythm accompaniment of up to eight. At the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival, a wide palate of popular vocal styles were permitted including ballad, blues, bop, progressive jazz, western-rock, gospel, folk, jazz-rock, and so on. Malcolm declared, “We set no limit on what the director or the students might want to provide the festival…The key to our festival is sound, swing, and communicate. In the final analysis is the choir able to gain and hold the interest of the audience, is there communication between the ensembles (choir and rhythm section/choir and soloists/rhythm section and soloists) and those listening? Is the audience, turned on?”36
The Northwest Swing Choir Festival attracted 11 groups in its inaugural year (1968) and by 1970 there were 66 swing choirs attending the rapidly growing event. Of Malcolm and his festivals impact on the northwest region early vocal jazz ensemble participant and arranger Kirby Shaw. He stated:
In terms of making vocal jazz a music education phenomenon, Hal Malcolm has the
claim to that throne. He had the greatest interest, focus and ability to get it started.
He focused on a Stan Kenton quality which sounded like a vocal big band. Groups
were going to his Northwest Swing Choir Festival starting in the late 1960’s so that
36 Robert R. Kull, “The Northwest Swing Choir Festival,” NAJE Educator Journal 3, no. 3 (Feb/Mar 1971): 4-6.
43 the influence of Hal Malcolm in Gresham, Oregon, had an influence all the way
through Oregon, Washington, and some of Idaho.37
At the conclusion of his 1998 memoir, Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education, Malcolm thanks all of the participants in the early Northwest Swing Choir/Vocal Jazz Festival and credits them for the proliferation of the vocal jazz idiom. He then singles out 42 schools and their 45 directors as those who “initially and repeatedly set the tempo in those earlier years at the Northwest Swing Choir/ Vocal Jazz Festival.” 38 (The complete list of schools/directors can be found in Appendix B on page 276). Malcolm recognized the names of four high schools and four directors from the Boise Valley in Idaho on his list:
Capital High School from Boise, Idaho - Jerry Vevig and Linda Schmidt, directors; Borah
High School from Boise, Idaho - Vern Swain, director; and Mountain Home High School from Mountain Home, Idaho - Lonnie Cline, director. The acknowledgement by Malcolm cites that Vevig, Swain, and their ensembles from the Boise Valley began to make an impact at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival during the 8th (1975) and 9th (1976) years of the event. This indicates that the specialty ensembles in public schools of the Boise Valley were participating in the practice and performance of vocal jazz ensemble literature sometime before the years 1975 and 1976. As there is no formal history of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley in Idaho, this study is meant to record the history of the vocal jazz ensemble singing movement in the public schools of the Boise Valley from its inception thorough the 1989-1990 academic year.
37 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992), 36, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. 38 Malcolm, Hal. “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of ‘Jazz’ in Vocal-Ensemble Music Education.” Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998, 29.
44 CHAPTER THREE
CAPITAL SENIOR AND FAIRMONT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – JERRY VEVIG AND
BRUCE WALKER, DIRECTORS
Vocal jazz ensemble education in the Boise Valley began sometime in the late 1960s and early 1970s when directors Jerry Vevig (see fig 3.1) and Bruce Walker at Capital Senior and Fairmont Junior High schools (Boise School District) began teaching vocal jazz literature and attending vocal jazz-type festivals held in the northwestern region of the
United States.
Fig. 3.1. Jerry Vevig - photo courtesy of the subject.
45 Jerry Vevig – Early Biography / The Capital Singers Pre-Vevig and Early Vevig
Jerry D. Vevig was born in Wahpton, North Dakota on March 20, 1939.
His father was a pastor who was great at building church congregations. Consequently, the family moved many times throughout Jerry’s upbringing. Shortly after his birth, the Vevigs moved to Minnesota and lived there for five years before moving to the state of Idaho where they would remain through Vevig’s pre-collegiate educational years. The elementary and secondary schools he attended were: Washington Elementary School in Pocatello,
Idaho (Kindergarten-3rd grade); Eagle Elementary School (4th–6th grades) and Eagle
Junior High School (7th & 8th grades), both located in Eagle, Idaho; Twin Falls Junior High
School (9th grade) and Twin Falls High School (10th grade) in Twin Falls, Idaho; and
College High School in Nampa, Idaho (11th & 12th grades). Vevig credits his mother’s side of the family for his musical gifts. His maternal grandparents played accordion
(grandmother) and fiddle (grandfather) together at church and his mother played piano by ear. Vevig inherited his mother’s “strong” musical ear and she proudly proclaimed that
“Jerry could sing harmony parts before he could talk.”39
Vevig was first exposed to choral music in ninth grade at O’Leary Junior High School in Twin Falls, Idaho. In need of an elective course, a school counselor escorted him to the choir room to meet the school’s choral director, Bell Haistler. Haistler, a strong-willed smoker from New Jersey gave Vevig several compliments during the audition and he was
“sold” on participating in the choir. Vevig’s early choral involvement in Twin Falls centered on classical singing styles. He heard his first collegiate choir while singing for Charlie
Wilson at Twin Falls High School (1955), when the “Crusader Choir” from Northwest
39 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
46 Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho performed as part of their concert tour in Twin Falls.
The concert was highly inspiring for Vevig and he recalls that the choir was perfect. The summer between his sophomore and junior years (1955), he married his wife Betty and the two moved to Nampa, Idaho where he completed his secondary school education at
College High School. Upon graduation in the spring of 1957, Vevig decided to become a public school choral director and enrolled at Northwest Nazarene University, home of the
“Crusader Choir,” to study music education in the fall of 1957.40
While attending Northwest Nazarene University (1957-1964), Vevig sang in the
“Crusader Choir” under the direction of Dr. Marvin Bloomquist and studied private voice and music education with Dr. Jim Carkhuff and Dr. Morney Tippet. In the spring of 1964, he graduated from the university with a BA in music education and in the fall of the same year accepted his first teaching position as choral director at the newly constructed Fairmont
Junior High School in Boise, Idaho. Vevig taught at the school for three years (1964/1965 through 1966/1967) before accepting the position of choral director at Capital High School.
Fairmont Junior High School was a feeder school for Capital High. In the fall of 1967, Vevig began his 16-year tenure (1967-1983) at Capital High School. Virginia Gabbard, wife of
College of Idaho Choral Director James Gabbard, was his successor at Fairmont Junior High
School for the 1967/1968 school year.41
Capital High School, the newest of the three high schools in the Boise School District, opened in 1964. Vevig replaced Bert Burda, the school’s founding choral director, in the fall of 1967 when Burda left to become the Music Consultant and Fine Arts Coordinator for the
40 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016. 41 Northwest Nazarene University Yearbook, Oasis, 1964, Nampa, Idaho, 77.
47 Idaho State Department of Education. When Vevig arrived at Capital High School, the program was flourishing and featured four curricular choirs: a large a cappella choir comprised of over 100 students (senior women & junior and senior men); a women’s choir composed of roughly 60 junior girls; a mixed training choir, which included about 80 sophomore through senior men and sophomore women; and a small specialty ensemble called “The Capital Singers.” Burda established the Capital Singers in 1965 and the music they were singing when Vevig arrived at Capital High School was of the pop genre, “not even close to jazz, big nice vibrato’s and all of that,” according to Vevig, Many of the vocal octavos performed by the early Capital Singers were arranged by Johnny Kakavis and set with acoustical instrumental accompaniment. Vevig recalls that one of the compositions was entitled, It’s Up to Us.42
A group from Chicago named the “Spurrlows” had a major influence on Vevig’s early musical selections for the “Capital Singers.” The “Spurrlows” were a Christian rock group founded by Thurlow Spurr and hired by the Chrysler Corporation to tour nationally to promote driver safety to high school assemblies (see http://spurrlows.lemoin.com/). Vevig heard the “Spurrlows” when they performed at an assembly at Capital High School early in his tenure. Vevig housed the drummer of the ensemble for a night and the entire evening
Vevig picked his brain for ideas about vocal literature to perform with the “Capital Singers.”
Many of the numbers he suggested were from the Christian-Pop genre, recalls Vevig. The following year, a “Spurrlows” spinoff group called “More and More” traveled through Boise and Vevig was able to acquire some arrangements from them that the Capital Singers could perform. One selection was a medley of Jimmy Webb songs that the Capital Singers
42 Capital High School Yearbook, Talon 3, 1968, Boise, Idaho, 105.
48 performed at the 1971 All-Northwest Convention Banquet at the Red Lion Riverside in
Boise and the medley “ went on, and on, and on,” according to Vevig.43
In March of 1970, Ron VanOrder, the band director at the neighboring Meridian
High School, attended the National MENC Convention in Chicago, Illinois. He was impressed with a vocal ensemble he had heard at the convention and he encouraged Vevig to try to replicate the group using the “Capital Singers.” Although details of the ensemble make-up were vague, Vevig gathered that the group used an instrumental back up group and a sound amplification system. The next school year (1970/1971), he recruited a rock band from the Capital High School student population to accompany the vocalists while he began to assemble a sound system to amplify them. The first semester, the system consisted of one microphone plugged into a silver tone bass amplifier used to boost the soloists’ volume. The second semester, one of the members of the Capital Singers brought in a set of horns that served as the PA system on the football field and, according to Vevig, “when they were up and running the entire ensemble was amplified.”44
Jerry Vevig – First Vocal Jazz Festival Experiences / Early Mentorships
In February of 1971, Vevig took the Capital Singers to their first vocal jazz ensemble-type festival held at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. At that time, the festival’s title was the Inland Jazz Festival, but under the guidance of festival director, Dr.
Lynn Skinner, the festival’s title changed to the University of Idaho Jazz Festival in 1975 and the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in 1985 after Lionel Hampton developed a strong
43 MENC, “MENC Northwest Division Conference,” Music Educators Journal, 57, no.7 (March 1971): 60. 44 MENC, “The 1970 MENC Convention,” MusicEducators Journal 56, no.6 (Feb 1970): 39.
49 connection with the event. During the festival, the Capital Singers performed Christian youth pop tunes, inspired by the “Spurrlows,” and won first place in the large high school division. Vevig recalls that the initial judges at the Inland Empire Jazz Festival were not
“jazz” people. In adjudicator Denny Gold’s critique of the “Capital Singers,” he mentioned that the ensemble would be better if they sang more “jazzy” arrangements and he recommended an arrangement of the gospel tune, “The Rock Creation” to Vevig. A few years later, Vevig would program The Rock Creation as a pop’s concert closer with his a cappella choir (not the “Capital Singers”).45
In May of the same year, 1971, fresh off their success at the Inland Jazz Festival,
Vevig and the Capital Singers made their first appearance at the Northwest Swing Choir
Festival held at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon. The festival was the original and largest vocal jazz festival in the country and it attracted all of the major high school vocal jazz ensembles from the Northwest Region, particularly those west of the
Cascade Mountains. At the event, the Capital Singers competed in the AAAA (largest school population) division against the perennial winner of the division, the Roosevelt High School
Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Seattle, Washington (Waldo King, director) Vevig was impressed with the incredible sense of authentic jazz style and swing that the ensemble from
Roosevelt High displayed during their performance at the event and he recalls being particularly taken by the arrangement of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that they performed. The ensemble’s student pianist, Dave Barduhn, had arranged the chart, and when Vevig saw him walking across the Mt. Hood campus later on that day, he approached
Barduhn to inquire about the arrangement (chart) and how he might obtain it. According to
45 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
50 Vevig, sometime during their conversation, Barduhn (see fig 3.2) simply reached into his music folder and handed him a copy of the chart. This was the beginning of a relationship between Barduhn and Vevig.46
Fig. 3.2. Dave Barduhn - photo courtesy of the subject.
Vevig and the Capital Singers also heard the groundbreaking Mt. Hood Community
College “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” for the first time at the same festival. Vevig believes that the ensemble and its director, Hal Malcolm, had a huge impact on the early vocal jazz ensemble directors in the Boise Valley. They were the first vocal jazz ensemble in the Northwest region and several of the Boise area ensembles happened to be attending their festival.
Vevig recalls that their sound was interesting and their sense of jazz style and swing was
“just excellent.” He and the Capital Singers (see figs. 3.3 & 3.4) would often listen to
46 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 22, 1971.
51 recordings of the Mt. Hood Community College “Vocal Jazz Ensemble,” especially if they were performing the same chart and would often “cover” their rendition. The Mt. Hood
Community College “Vocal Jazz Ensemble’s” debut album Please Walk Softly (1974 – see fig.
3.5), the first nationally distributed album by a vocal jazz ensemble from an educational institution, and it’s follow up album, Send In the Clowns (1976), were two of the records
Vevig played recordings from for the Capital Singers to emulate. When reminiscing about what he learned while attending his first Northwest Swing Choir Festival Vevig said, “I thought, Woah, I’ve got some stuff to learn and it took me awhile to figure out how much I had to learn. What we did, we did well, it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t quite jazz.”47
Fig. 3.3. The 1971/1972 Capital Singers (Jerry Vevig, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
47 Creative World Music Publications, “Music For Vocal Jazz Ensemble,” Advertisement, National Association of Jazz Educators Journal, Vol. VI, no. 4 (February 1974), 45.
52
Fig. 3.4. The Capital Singers (1971/1972 - Jerry Vevig, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Fig. 3.5. An advertisement for the first Mt. Hood Vocal Jazz Ensemble album “Please Walk Softly” as it appeared in the NAJE Journal - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
53 In the fall of 1972, Vevig committed to attending at least one vocal jazz festival a year. That year, he entered the Capital Singers in their first Reno International Jazz Festival held at the University of Nevada Reno, in Reno, Nevada. The ensemble only attended the event a few times during Vevig’s tenure at Capital, as there was nothing exciting for the students to do in Reno.48 Vevig recalls that the festival followed the same format as the Mt.
Hood Vocal Jazz Festival, as the festival’s director John Carrico Sr. and Hal Malcolm were friends.49
Structure of Early Festivals – The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival Model
Vocal jazz ensemble directors registered for the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival (see fig. 3.6) by filling out and mailing in an application for the festival along with a $90 registration fee to Mt. Hood Community College. After the registration due date for the festival had passed Hal Malcolm, the festival director, placed registered mixed ensembles into four divisions based on each schools enrollment (A = schools with the smallest school enrollment, AA, AAA, AAAA = schools with the largest school enrollment). The Northwest
Vocal Jazz Festival also had a fifth division for non-mixed vocal jazz ensembles. The different competition divisions took place in four separate locations (the performance theatre, art gallery, cafeteria, and gymnasium) on the Mt. Hood campus. Each performance site included (a) a piano and a bass amplifier for the ensemble’s rhythm section to use during their performance, (b) three sets of three step choral risers for the vocal jazz ensembles to stand on during their performance, and (c) a sound system which amplified the choral ensemble with two area microphones supported by overhead/boom stands and
48 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016. 49 Hal Malcolm, “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of “Jazz” in Vocal-Ensemble Music Education,” Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998, 18.
54 amplified the ensemble’s soloists with two close proximity/dynamic microphones on round stands. Participating ensembles were required to supply all other instruments and equipment they needed for their performances and were responsible for moving them on and off the stage. 50
Fig. 3.6. The program for the 1980 Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of Dave Barduhn.
The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival occurred each year on the third Saturday of May, and the day competition typically lasted around 8 hours. All participating vocal jazz
50 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri, Kansas City, 1992), 101 & 102.
55 ensembles received a designated 20-minute time slot to perform their vocal jazz selections at the festival. The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival had official timekeepers at each divisional site in order to make sure that groups were not exceeding the time limit. They timed each ensemble from the moment the first student walked on the performance stage until the last student had exited the stage after the performance. If an ensemble exceeded the 20-minute time limit, the timekeeper notified festival officials and the ensemble was disqualified. The time limit affected the number of songs an ensemble could safely program for performance at the festival. In order to avoid disqualification, most ensembles only sang three selections at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival.51
There were three adjudicators assigned to evaluate and score ensembles in each competition division. They were required to complete an adjudication form, scoring the vocal jazz ensemble in ten different categories. The categories on the adjudication form for the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival were: blend-balance, intonation, color texture-fresh idea, time-rhythm, precision, dynamics, interpretation-phrasing, swing concepts-jazz excitement presentation-communication, and arrangements-choice of material. Director’s would receive completed adjudication forms at the festival conclusion following a performance by the Mt. Hood Community College “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” and sing-offs.52
At the conclusion of the collegiate performance, the top three scoring ensembles in each division were announced and the ensembles were invited to participate in an evening sing-off where they would compete for first, second, and third places in their divisions. The evening sing-off began sometime in the early evening and took place in the gymnasium at
51 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016. 52 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri, Kansas City, 1992), 103.
56 Mt. Hood Community College. During the finals, vocal jazz ensembles were given a 10- minute time limit for their performances. Most ensembles performed two selections. Final performances were not adjudicated. The judges would simply write down their first, second, and third place choices in each division and, after all of the ensembles had performed, they would go to a separate location to tabulate votes and discuss results before the winners were announced. After another short performance by the Mt. Hood
Community College “Vocal Jazz Ensemble,” the winners in each division were announced, given trophies, and the festival concluded.53
Jerry Vevig – The Capital Singers – First Reno Jazz Festival / Early Arrangements/
Group Profile / Selection Process
At the Capital Singers first appearance at the Reno International Jazz Festival (April,
1972), they ranked second in the large school division (AAAA) after the group they had heard at the Northwest Swing Choir Festival the previous year, Waldo King’s “Vocal Jazz
Ensemble” from Roosevelt High School (see figs. 3.7 & 3.8). Vevig vividly remembers hearing the ensemble’s interpretation of Dave Barduhn’s arrangement of Harry Akst and
Grant Clarke’s tune Am I Blue at the event, saying that their pianissimos “were so soft that you better get the room quiet because you’re not going to hear them.” He liked the arrangement of Am I Blue so much that he had one of his students in the Capital Singers transcribe it from a tape recording made of Roosevelt High School’s performance at the festival. Vevig had another Barduhn arrangement transcribed by his student for performance by his choir, “Here’s That Rainy Day.54
53 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992) pages 102 & 103, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. 54 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
57
Fig. 3.7. The Roosevelt High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Waldo King, director) at the 1972 Reno International Jazz Festival in Reno, NV. .Dave Barduhn is behind King (second row far left) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Fig. 3.8. The Roosevelt High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble (Waldo King, director) performing at the 1972 Reno International Jazz Festival in Reno, NV - photo courtesy of the subject.
58 Early on in his career, Vevig also taught vocal jazz arrangements published by Stan
Kenton’s company, Creative World Publishing, to the “Capital Singers.” According to Vevig, the company’s vocal arrangements of Painted Rhythm and Eager Beaver copied the original
Stan Kenton big band charts verbatim and were published like big band charts, which made them hard to read and teach because they were not in full score. During the mid 1970s, Gib
Hocstrasser, a Glen Miller aficionado who lead a professional big-band in Boise called “The
Kings of Swing,” also provided Vevig with charts made famous by the professional vocal jazz ensemble the “Modernaires” for the Capital Singers. Vevig thought that the University of Idaho “Vocal Jazz Choir” director and arranger, Dan Bukvich, was a genius and he had him arrange Cole Porter’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin for the Capital Singers to perform at the 1974 National School Board Convention in Anaheim, California. At the performance,
Vevig dedicated the song to the rocky mountain tick, and the crowd loved it. “One of my better jokes” recalled Vevig. Throughout his career at Capital High School, Vevig’s Capital
Singers also performed published arrangements by Kirby Shaw, Phil Mattson, Phil Azelton, and Jack Kunz as well as unpublished arrangements by Hal Malcolm and Alan Yankee.55
Jerry Vevig – Other Literature and Performances
Throughout Vevig’s tenure at Capital High School, the Capital Singers averaged about 60 performances a school year. They performed annually in the Choral Department’s
Fall, Christmas, Spring, and Pops Concerts held at Capital High School; they traveled to at least two vocal jazz festivals held outside of the Boise Valley; and performed for parties, business and school board meetings, and various other functions in the Boise community,
55 Creative World Music Publications, “Music For Vocal Jazz Ensemble,” Advertisement. National Association of Jazz Educators Journal, Vol.VI no.4 (February 1974), 45.
59 throughout the year. At these community performances, Vevig would intersperse the ensembles vocal jazz literature with arrangements of popular and patriotic tunes in order to both appease and educate audience members. Some of the non jazz arrangements performed by the Capital Singers, in the 1970s included popular hits such as Close To You,
We’ve Only Just Begun, Take Me Home Country Roads, and Hurting Each Other, patriotic medleys I’m Thankful To Be An American and What Price Freedom, and the 1920s medley
Twentiana.56
As the Capital Singers were performing so often during the school year, Vevig’s top two criteria for membership in the ensemble were attitude and dedication. As vocal jazz harmonies are tricky, he also valued a student’s musical ear and in each audition he had potential members sing the quarter step between b and c on the keyboard to try and distinguish between candidates seeking membership in the ensemble. At that time, making the Capital Singers was a big deal, recalls Vevig. He realized this one particular spring while reading the new Capital Singers roster aloud to his girls’ choir when a young lady ran out of the room crying because she had not made the ensemble.57
After the spring auditions, Vevig usually admitted around 22 students to the “Capital
Singers.” As Boise was growing at that time, he would always save spots for students that might transfer into the school over the summer. The group averaged 24 to 30 vocalists during Vevig’s tenure at Capital High School. As competitive vocal jazz festivals disqualified ensembles for having more than 24 vocalists on stage at once, his students often had to rotate in and out of competition performances. Members of the Capital Singers purchased a new matching outfit each year (see fig. 3.9). Vevig miked the vocal ensemble with two area
56 Capital Singers, On Top Of The World, 1974, Don Cederstrom Custom Recording, LP. 57 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
60 microphones and the group’s soloists with two dynamic microphones during performances.58
Figure 3.9. The 1975 Capital Singers (Jerry Vevig, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
While Vevig was steadily programming more vocal jazz literature and participating in multiple vocal jazz festivals with the Capital Singers his choral program was fed by Bruce
Walker at Fairmont Junior High School from 1968/1969 through 1973/1974. Walker (see fig. 3.10) and Vevig knew each other well, as they had met while playing in the band at
Eagle Junior High School in 1951.59
58 Capital High School Yearbook, Talon Volume IX, 1974, Boise, Idaho,158 & 159. 59 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author, Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016.
61
Fig. 3.10. Bruce Walker - photo courtesy of the subject.
Bruce Walker – Early Biography
Bruce Walker was born on March 12, 1939 in New Meadows, Idaho. His family was musical and for entertainment he, his siblings, and his father would often gather around the piano to sing while his mother accompanied them on the piano. Walker could sing close harmony parts by the time he was in junior high school as he and his brothers sang barbershop music with their father starting in elementary school. All of the Walker children also played in school bands throughout their upbringing as their parents encouraged it and Walker began playing the baritone saxophone in the fifth grade while attending Locust Grove Elementary School in Meridian, Idaho.60
60 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author, Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016.
62 Walker played the baritone saxophone in the concert bands at Eagle Grade School
(7th & 8th grades from 1957/1958 – 1958/1959) and at Meridian High School (9th - 12th grades, 1959/1960 – 1962/1963). He also sang in the Meridian High School Choir under the direction of Phil Peterson his senior year. While attending Meridian High School,
Walker also took up the trombone in order to participate in the school’s jazz band his junior and senior years. Of his early years playing in the style Walker recalls, “I loved jazz, I loved playing it.” He graduated from Meridian High School in the spring of 1963 and in the fall of the same year he enrolled at Boise Junior College in Boise, Idaho.61
At Boise Junior College, Walker majored in music and general studies while he played the baritone saxophone in the concert band and valve trombone in the marching band. In the spring of 1965, Walker graduated from Boise Junior College and began study at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in the fall of the same year. BYU offered several classical choirs at that time and Bruce participated in the 160 voice Oratorio Choir. For
Walker, the ensemble’s performance of Felix Mendelsohn’s Elijah was the highlight of his first year in the group. He was very fortunate to serve as the assistant/student conductor of the choir during his senior year. . Walker graduated from Brigham Young University in the spring of 1968 with a Bachelor of Music Education (vocal principal) degree. The degree certified him to teach K-12 choral and instrumental music and in the fall of 1968, he accepted his first teaching job at Fairmont Junior High School in Boise, Idaho. Fairmont
Junior High was one of the two feeder schools for Capital High School where Jerry Vevig was the choral director.62
61 "Idaho Music Educators Association Host Night Concert (UP 615)" (1964). Department of Music Programs. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/music_programs/127. 62 Brigham Young University Yearbook, Banyan, 1967, Provo, Utah, 250 & 251.
63 Bruce Walker – Early Career / the Fairmont Junior High Swing Choir / Literature
When Walker started at Fairmont Junior High School, it was not a full-time choral program; it was four periods of choir at the junior high and some time at a grade school.
Walker was not happy with the schedule as he wanted to be full-time at Fairmont Junior
High School and he approached his principal about adding a smaller specialty choral ensemble to the school’s curriculum, which would provide him with the correct course load to be full-time at the school. His principal approved the ensemble and in the fall of 1970, the first Fairmont Junior High Swing Choir (see fig. 3.11) was born.63
Fig. 3.11. The first Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (Bruce Walker, director, 1971) - photo courtesy of the subject.
63 Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook, The Falcon, 1970, Boise, Idaho, 51.
64 According to Walker, most public schools did not have specialty ensembles at that time and those who did were performing madrigals combined with some pop and novelty numbers for audience appeal.64 Walker consulted his colleague Jerry Vevig at Capital High
School for ideas on vocal literature he could perform with the new Swing Choir at Fairmont
Junior High School and as Vevig was beginning to participate in the burgeoning vocal jazz singing movement occurring in the northwest region he encouraged Walker to try some vocal jazz literature with the Swing Choir. He took Vevig’s advice and combined vocal jazz literature with a wide variety of genres when programming musical sets for the Swing
Choir. Walker was interested in audience size and appeal and, while he felt that jazz was fantastic, fun, exciting and had lots of audience appeal; he also believed that audiences did not want a diet of only one thing. He formed this opinion by watching restless audiences at concerts and festivals where ensembles were performing whole programs of vocal jazz music.65
Throughout his career, Walker’s select specialty ensembles performed a variety of choral music, including amongst others madrigals, chamber music, pop, folk, show, bluegrass, and vocal jazz. He personally arranged several of the selections performed by the Fairmont Junior High Swing Choir. He also found many arrangements while attending vocal jazz festivals and musical conventions. His favorite jazz arrangements to teach were jazz ballads because of the “goosebumps” he and the ensemble would experience when a chord with extended harmonies would tune. Many of the vocal jazz-type arrangements performed by the Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir were scored for SATB choir and some featured extended moments for vocal improvisation. When selecting his vocal
64 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author, Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016. 65 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
65 improvisers, Walker listened in rehearsals for students who sang naturally in the jazz style and then encouraged those students to practice scatting at home and separately with the rhythm section before having them scat sing in class or in concert. Walker recalls that Dave
Barduhn, Roger Emerson, Kirby Shaw, Gene Puerling, Phil Mattson, and Anita Kerr, were the most popular vocal jazz arrangers used by the early vocal jazz educators of the Boise
Valley.66
Each year Walker selected around 30 vocalists for membership in the Fairmont
Junior High Swing Choir. As jazz and popular music literature included harmonies that were more difficult than standard choral literature, his top criteria when granting membership were the students’ musical ear and their ability to hold their vocal part against other parts. In the audition, Walker tested each auditioner’s ear by having him or her sing a series of pitch recall sequences that increased in difficulty as they progressed. He also tested their part holding ability by having them sing a pre-learned vocal part while he played another vocal part with them on the piano.67
The Swing Choir participated in the Fall, Christmas, Pre-Festival, and Spring concerts presented by the choral program at Fairmont Junior High school. They also competed at the Boise School District Junior High School Large Group Festival, performed for parties, business and school board meetings, and various other functions in the Boise community, particularly during the Christmas season, and toured the school’s four feeder elementary schools in order to recruit students for the Fairmont Junior High School choral program. Girls in the Swing Choir wore homemade dresses and the boys wore shirts or ties
66 Hal Leonard Music Publishing, “Welcome To My World…and Other Choral Settings by Anita Kerr,” advertisement. NAJE Educator Journal, January 1973, 15. 67 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author. Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016.
66 that matched the color of the girls dresses (see fig. 3.12). The ensemble stood on two or three sets of four-step choral risers in either a mixed choral formation
(soprano/tenor/alto/bass), or the girls stood in the first two rows of risers while the boys were in the back two rows. When amplification of the ensemble was needed, the choir used two overhead/area microphones and soloists used two close proximity/dynamic microphones.68
Fig. 3.12. One of the early Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choirs (Bruce Walker, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
68 Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook, The Falcon, 1973, 67.
67 Bruce Walker - Listening Influences / the Inland Jazz Festival / Jerry Sanford
Walker approached vocal jazz education by first listening to the jazz idiom, stating,
“that’s what all teacher’s have to do.” The professional jazz artists and ensembles that influenced him were the big bands lead by Ellington, Basie, Goodman, and Kenton as well as vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Louis Armstrong. His background, performing in big-bands through high school and college, combined with his listening to instrumental and vocal jazz on a regular basis helped him teach the correct style of up-tempo jazz to his students in the Swing Choir. He achieved this by having students use any kind of tone syllable, as well as having them implode their “t” sounds at the beginning and ending of phrases instead of using words while singing through musical phrases.69
After a year of working on vocal jazz selections and with the encouragement and support of his Principal, Walker and Swing Choir attended the Inland Jazz Festival in the spring of 1971. Walker could not recall all of the literature the choir preformed at the event, but he did remember that the adjudicators were impressed with their rendition of
Antonio Carlos Jobim’s How Insensitive, arranged by Anita Kerr (see fig. 3.13). The Swing
Choir performed the tune accompanied by students on the upright bass, piano, and drums, and when they finished, they received a standing ovation from the panel of adjudicators.
One of the judges, Hal Malcolm from Mt. Hood Community College, was so excited with the performance that he approached Walker and the Swing Choir later on during the festival to compliment them. Walker recalls that Malcolm was particularly “awestruck” with the student trio that accompanied the choir as most of the early junior high school vocal jazz ensembles used adults in their rhythm sections. Walker learned how to work with a
69 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author. Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016.
68 rhythm section by driving the short distance between Fairmont Junior and Capital Senior
High Schools and observing Jerry Vevig work with the Capital Singers rhythm section.70
Fig. 3.13. An advertisment for arrangements by Anita Kerr published by Hal Leonard as it appeared in the NAJE Educator Journal - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
The Inland Jazz Festival and the many other vocal jazz festivals occurring in the northwest region provided a platform for junior and senior high school directors to “show off” their ensembles and attain accolades for their institutions, which Walker thought was a powerful force in encouraging Boise Valley choral directors to participate in the events.71
According to Walker, vocal jazz ensemble singing began to gain even more traction in the
Boise Valley when national educational music organizations like the Music Educators
70 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016. 71 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author, Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016.
69 National Conference (MENC) and the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) started featuring vocal jazz ensembles on their regional and national convention programs.
Walker recalls that Hal Malcolm’s vocal jazz ensemble from Mt. Hood Community College and Frank Demiero’s Soundsation Vocal Jazz Choir from Edmonds Community College were two of the early and influential ensembles he heard perform on convention programs.72 (A list of the convention sessions and performances by ensembles and clinicians from the northwestern region can be found in Appendix C on page 278).
After six years of serving as the school’s choral director (1967/1968-1973/1974)
Walker left Fairmont Junior High School, to pursue graduate studies in choral music at
Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Throughout his career, his colleagues referred to
Walker as the ‘Pied Piper’ of the Boise Valley area schools, as he was able to build large choral programs in every school he taught. When he left Fairmont Junior High School, about half of the schools 900 students were participating in one of the four curricular choral ensembles (7th-grade mixed choir, 8th-grade women’s choir, 8th and 9th-grade concert choir, and 8th and 9th-grade Swing Choir – see fig. 13.14). Roger Fordyce replaced him at Fairmont Junior High School in the fall of 1974.73
While Walker was building the choral program at Fairmont Junior High School, Jerry
Sanford was doing the same thing at Capital High School’s other feeder school, Hillside
Junior High School. Sanford was a graduate of Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa,
Idaho and had done his student teaching with Vevig at Capital High School before teaching
72 Northwest MENC All-Northwest Convention. Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, Portland Oregon, February 18, 1973. Performances by the Mount Hood Community College and Roosevelt Senior High School Vocal Jazz Ensembles. 73 Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook, The Falcon, 1974, Boise, Idaho, 70. .
70 at Hillside Junior High School. Vevig recalls that Sanford had a beautiful tenor voice and was a “pied piper” like Bruce Walker at Fairmont Junior High School. The choral program at
Hillside Junior High School included close to 400 students per year during his tenure at the school and Sanford and the Hillside Junior High School Swing Choir were also active participants in the developing vocal jazz ensemble movement in the Boise Valley. Sanford taught at Hillside from 1970 to 1976 when he left teaching to pursue other interests. Glen
Grant succeeded him.74
Fig. 3.14. Bruce Walker’s last Swing Choir at Fairmont Junior High School (1973/1974) - photo courtesy of the subject.
74 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
71 CHAPTER FOUR
BORAH SENIOR AND WEST JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – VERN SWAIN AND SUE HOUGH-
BLOCK, DIRECTORS
In the fall of 1972, Vern Swain (see fig. 4.1) and Sue Hough-Block joined Jerry Vevig and Bruce Walker in the practice and performance of vocal jazz in the Boise Valley when they began teaching in the Boise School District at Borah High School and at its feeder program, West Junior High School.75
Fig. 4.1. Vern Swain - photo courtesy of the subject.
75 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
72 Vern Swain – Early Biography and Collegiate Studies
Vern Swain was born in Jackson, Wyoming and raised on a ranch in Daniel. His musical upbringing started early as his grandfather taught him to play the mandolin when he was 5-years old. He began playing the tonette (a plastic flute used in elementary schools prior to the popularity of the recorder) in the first grade. By 4th-grade, Swain had shown enough interest in music that his parents bought him a tenor saxophone and he began playing it in the Evanston High School varsity band that same year. His father was a guitarist who taught Swain chord structures and songs on the instrument. This early coaching coupled with his father’s life motto, “learn all you can about as much as you can,” lead him to teach himself to play several more stringed instruments during his youth. In addition to his instrumental study and participation, Swain also sang in the Evanston Junior and Senior High School choirs while growing up in Wyoming.76
Swain received both his Bachelors and Masters degrees of Music from the University of Wyoming in Laramie and he attended The University of Colorado, in Boulder, for 1 year between the degrees. His collegiate studies were strictly classical in nature and Swain recalls that while he was attending the University of Wyoming, there were signs posted throughout the music department prohibiting the playing of jazz and other popular styles.
Swain studied private voice with George Gunn during his undergraduate degree program.
He studied composition with Alan Willman, the Dean of the College of Music at the
University of Wyoming in graduate school. During his year at the University of Colorado, he studied fugue with Cecil Effinger, vocal pedagogy with Berton Coffin, and German lieder
76 Vern Swain, oral interview by author, Evanston, Wyoming, December 13, 2016.
73 with Axel Shutz. Swain credits his graduate study in composition for his ability to arrange vocal jazz charts for his ensembles.77
Upon completing his Master’s degree, Swain taught at Bonneville High School in
Idaho Falls, Idaho. During his 4-year tenure at the school (1968/1969 - 1971/1972), his top classical choir performed at a Northwestern Regional ACDA Convention. In the fall of
1972, Vern moved to Boise where he replaced Dale Ball as choral director at Borah High
School. When he arrived at Borah the choral program consisted of four curricular choirs: the a cappella choir, which was a large mixed ensemble comprised of junior and seniors, a junior and senior women’s choir, a large mixed concert choir comprised mainly of sophomores, and a small select mixed specialty ensemble called the Swing Choir. Swain renamed the specialty ensemble the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble, as the group performed multiple styles of popular music including arrangements of folksongs, popular radio hits, and vocal jazz standards.78
Vern Swain – Hal Malcolm Mentorship/Early Vocal Jazz Literature and Festivals
Swain gives credit for the genesis of vocal jazz education in the Boise valley to Hal
Malcolm at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon and to Waldo King at
Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Washington. Swain became acquainted with Malcolm during his first year of teaching at Borah High School when Malcolm adjudicated the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (see fig. 4.2) at the 1973 Reno International Jazz
Festival in Reno, Nevada. According to Swain, the festival was an eye opening experience for his ensemble, as they did not perform vocal jazz music “per se.” Instead, they did folk
77 University of Wyoming Yearbook, WYO Nineteen Sixty-Four (Volume 51), 1964, Laramie, Wyoming, 301. 78 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 73, 1973, Boise, Idaho, 94 & 95.
74 music along with some arrangements of popular radio hits, which was what most groups were performing at the time. Malcolm was not fond of the literature choices made by Swain and on his adjudication sheet for the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble, he only wrote a few words. “You call this jazz, tssk! tssk! tssk!”79
Fig. 4.2. The Borah High School Swing Choir (1974 - Vern Swain, director) in performance - photo courtesy of the subject.
Malcolm’s comment on his adjudication sheet at the Reno International Jazz Festival led Swain to dig deeper into vocal jazz literature and style. According to Swain, finding quality vocal jazz literature to perform was difficult at that time as there just wasn’t anything out there; it was “like finding chicken lips.” Swain was a fan of the professional vocal jazz group The Four Freshmen, and he took a “shot in the dark” and called Ross
Barber, the ensembles baritone singer and drummer, to ask him if he had any vocal jazz- type literature Swain could possibly use with the his ensemble at Borah High School.
Barber was ‘thrilled” that high school groups were beginning to perform vocal jazz music
79 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
75 and he shared many of The Four Freshmen’s charts with Swain. Swain recalls having to re- voice the arrangements in order for the ensemble to perform them as they had been written for four male voices not a mixed ensemble. As he had extensive training in compositional techniques, Swain also began writing his own vocal jazz arrangements such as Exactly Like You, The Shadow Of Your Smile, There Used To Be A Ball Park Here, and
Eleanor Rigby, for his ensemble to sing.80
The next school year (1973/1974) Swain and the Contemporary Directions Vocal
Ensemble attended the Inland Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho for the first time. According to
Swain, he programmed many of the arrangements from The Four Freshmen. As it turned out, Hal Malcolm was again one of the adjudicators. The performance by the Contemporary
Directions Vocal Ensemble went so well that they were awarded first place in the AAAA
(largest school population) division and at the conclusion of the festival, Malcolm approached Swain and said, “That was one of the most amazing turnarounds I’ve ever heard in a high school group, you are very deserving of the first place award.” Shortly after the Inland Jazz Festival, Swain called Malcolm and invited him to come to Borah High
School and present a vocal jazz clinic to his students. Malcolm addressed vocal jazz style and improvisation with the students while Swain observed and learned how to conduct jazz by watching Malcolm work. After the clinic, Swain began a real friendship with
Malcolm (see fig. 4.3) who he calls his first mentor in the vocal jazz idiom.81
80 Vern Swain, oral interview by author, Evanston, Wyoming, December 13, 2016. 81 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
76
Fig. 4.3. Hal Malcolm around the time he scolded Vern Swain for his repertoire choices at the Reno International Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of Dave Barduhn.
In the spring of 1974, Vern Swain and the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble began attending Malcolm’s Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival held at Mt. Hood Community
College on a regular basis. Swain recalled that two other Boise valley vocal jazz ensembles, the Capital Singers under the direction of Jerry Vevig and the New Dimensions under the direction of Lonnie Cline, were also attending the event on a regular basis during the mid to late 70s. Swain met Waldo King, the director of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble at Roosevelt High
School for the first time at the 1974 Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival; when King approached
Swain after hearing the his ensemble sing his arrangement of There Used to be a Ballpark
Here at the event. Swain recalls that King complimented him on the arrangement and said,
“I’ll give you anything I have in my library for a copy of that chart.” Swain gladly exchanged
77 the arrangement for several vocal jazz charts arranged by King’s former student, prolific early vocal jazz arranger, Dave Barduhn. Some of the Barduhn chart’s Swain requested from King were Being Green, I’ve Got the World on a String, and There Will Never Be Another
You.82
Vern Swain - Vocal Jazz Listening / Barduhn Arrangements / Festival Programming
and Improvisation
During his tenure in the Boise valley, Swain learned the jazz style by listening to professional recordings of vocal jazz soloists Chet Baker, Mark Murphy, Ella Fitzgerald, and
Mel Torme as well as professional vocal jazz groups: Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, The
Four Freshmen, The Hi-Lo’s, Rare Silk, and The Singers Unlimited. Swain shared these jazz performers and groups with his students in the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble by playing a cut from a jazz recording at the beginning of each of the ensemble’s rehearsals.
After they had listened, the ensemble would critically discuss what they heard on the recording and many of the students applied ideas they gained from the recordings in their own solo sing with the ensemble83
One particular professional vocal jazz album by alto saxophonist Bud Shank and the
Bob Alcivar Singers entitled Let It Be really knocked Swain out. The album included arrangements of the tunes Both Sides Now and For Once In My Life, and Swain wanted to do the charts so badly that he obtained Bob Alcivar’s phone number from information in Los
Angeles and called him to request the arrangements. After a fruitful conversation, Alcivar sent all of the charts from the album to Swain for his use with the Contemporary Directions
82 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 17, 1974. 83 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
78 Vocal Ensemble. Swain recalls that the only issue with the arrangements was that in order to perform them he had to create parts for the rhythm section to play as Alcivar had only sent him the vocal parts.84
At one of their early appearances at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival, the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble performed Alcivar’s arrangement of For Once in
My Life complete with a soloist patterning his solo after Shank’s alto saxophone playing.
Dave Barduhn heard the performance and enjoyed the arrangement so much that he asked
Swain to share it with him. Swain immediately sent a copy of all of the Alcivar charts to
Barduhn, who in return began sending Swain his arrangements whenever he requested them. Barduhn also arranged the Eddie Vinson tune Four for Swain and his ensemble sometime in the mid 70s.85
Swain and the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble attended the University of
Idaho Jazz Festival, the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival, the Reno International Jazz Festival, and the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival during his tenure at Borah High
School. They were highly successful and consistent at all of the competitions placing in the
AAAA (largest school population) division at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival three times and winning the AAAA division at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival four times between
1974 and 1978. His fondest festival memory came at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival in
1978 when the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble received standing ovations after both tunes they sang in the playoff competition.86
84 Vern Swain, oral interview by author, Evanston, Wyoming, December 13, 2016. 85 Dave Barduhn, oral interview by author, Pasco Washington, April 22, 2017. 86 Dave Barduhn, “Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival Winners,” Mt. Hood Community College, May 2017.
79 Swain always programmed an up-tempo tune, a blues tune, and a ballad for his ensemble to perform at vocal jazz festivals. He felt that performing a strong ballad gave groups a leg up in competition, as that was where the ensemble could demonstrate vocal technique and nuance. Swain taught his ensemble members to make a vocal jazz tone by having them modify classical singing vowel shapes to popular singing vowel shapes. Many of the arrangements performed by Swain’s ensemble contained sections for vocal improvisation. Swain taught vocal improvisation by playing recordings of outstanding jazz improvisation in class for the students to emulate. He also taught the vocalists several blues scales and, after they were comfortable singing the scales, he would have the ensembles bass player walk a blues progression while the vocalist’s sang the blues scales over it.
Swain felt this process made his vocal improvisers aware of the many melodic choices they had when improvising over blues changes.87
Vern Swain – The Make-Up and Logistical Calendar of the Contemporary Directions
Vocal Ensemble / National Honors
During Swain’s tenure at Borah High School the membership of the Contemporary
Directions Vocal Ensemble averaged between 24 and 30 vocalists. A standard jazz trio, comprised of piano, bass, and drums, accompanied the group while other instruments such as saxophone, trombone, and guitar, were added on occasion. Swain taught his pianists (see fig. 4.4) to voice their accompanying jazz chords using five pitches (playing two pitches in the left hand & three pitches in the right hand) and he regularly held rehearsals with the
87 Vern Swain, oral interview by author, Evanston, Wyoming, December 13, 2016.
80 rhythm section outside of class time. In order to establish a steady tempo within the trio, he had them play along to a metronome, which he amplified using a sound system.88
Fig. 4.4. A keyboardist from the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble at Borah High School - photo courtesy of the subject.
In performance, the ensemble stood on two sets of four-step choral risers and Swain amplified the choral group with two area microphones attached to two boom stands while the soloists used two dynamic microphones. According to Swain, the ensemble wore unified outfits when he first arrived at the school but he switched to a black and white color scheme around 1975 because he found that the students felt more comfortable and often
88 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 75, 1975, Boise, Idaho, 76 & 77.
81 times looked better, in an outfit of their choosing. Membership in the ensemble was based on testing the applicant’s musical ear, recalls Swain. During each audition, he would play a pitch on the keyboard and ask them to sing a half step above the pitch. Swain (see fig. 4.5) also tested each potential member to see if they could independently hold their vocal part on a prepared section of music by singing another vocal part against/with them.89
Fig. 4.5. Vern Swain at the keyboard at Borah High School - photo courtesy of the subject.
Similar to the Capital Singers at Capital High School, the Contemporary Directions
Vocal Ensemble performed often in the Boise community throughout the school year and
Swain recalls that his last year at Borah High School (1977/1978) the ensemble sang over
89 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 76, 1976, Boise, Idaho, 46-49.
82 70 times. Swain agreed to all of the performing as he believed that it developed group cohesiveness, spirit, and synergy. During his tenure at Borah High School, Swain recalled that all of the Boise School District specialty ensembles, including the junior high schools, were out performing at community events and parties. He credits the Boise School District
Superintendent of Music, Howard Freeman, for providing these performance opportunities, as he would direct calls from organizations requesting a performing ensemble to each of the Boise School District choral directors.90
Swain and the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble brought national attention to the Boise valley when the National Association of Jazz Educators featured them as their
“guest vocal group” on the Choral Materials page in the April/May 1976 issue of the NAJE
Educator Journal. As the educational vocal jazz ensemble movement began in the northwest region of the United States, groups from the region were not strangers to being chosen as the “guest vocal group” in the NAJE Educator Journal. Seven of the first ten groups selected for the journal entry were from the region. With their selection, Swain and the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (see fig 4.6) joined the likes of Hal Malcolm and the Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon, Waldo
King and the Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Washington, and
Ken Kraintz and the Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Cascade High School in Everett,
Washington.91 (The full list of “guest vocal groups” featured in the NAJE Educator
Journal is located in Appendix D on page 283).
90 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016. 91 Dana F. Wells, “ Choral Materials,” NAJE Educator, VIII, no. 4 (April/May1976): 19.
83
Fig. 4.6. The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1976 – Vern Swain, director). The first vocal jazz ensemble from Idaho to be recognized as a “guest choral ensemble” in the NAJE Educator Journal (April/May 1976 - Vol. 8, No. 4) - photo courtesy of the subject.
According to Swain, the success of his ensemble at vocal jazz festivals and at the
1976 Idaho Music Educators Convention led other early Boise valley vocal jazz educators to call on him to run clinics on vocal jazz ensemble singing with their ensembles. Swain recalls that he worked with Moyle Brown’s group at New Plymouth High School on several occasions during the latter part of his tenure at Borah High School. During his last year at
Borah High School (1977/1978) Swain and the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble
(see fig. 4.7) attained more national recognition to the Boise valley when they performed for the National MENC (Music Educators National Conference) Convention held in Chicago,
Illinois. Fellow Boise valley vocal jazz educator Lonnie Cline believes that the notoriety that
Swain and his ensemble attained by performing vocal jazz ensemble music on a national
84 stage helped to solidify vocal jazz in the Boise Valley.92 Swain left Borah High School in the spring of 1978 to venture into a solo career as a country artist. During his tenure at Borah
High School (1972-1978), the choral program at West Junior High School, one of his two feeder programs, was lead by Susan Hough-Block (see fig 4.8).93
Fig. 4.7. The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1978 – Vern Swain, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival (Moscow, Idaho) - photo courtesy of subject.
92 Lonnie Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016. 93 MENC, “MENC Chicago: Conference Highlights,” Music Educators Journal 64, no.7 (March 1978): 76&77.
85
Fig. 4.8. Sue Hough-Bock - photo courtesy of the subject.
Susan Hough-Block – Early Biography
Susan Hough-Block was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on June 10, 1947. She grew up in a family who valued music and with their support and encouragement; she began taking piano lessons at the age of 9. In the 8th grade, while singing in the only choir at the school for the energetic and inspirational Wayne Lipson, she decided to become a music educator.
From 1962 through 1965, Hough-Block attended Oshkosh High School, now Oshkosh North
High School, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The music program at the school was “phenomenal” and included five choirs with 100 students in each choir and four bands with 50 students in each band. A Ford Foundation composer lived in the city for 2 of the years Hough-Block attended the high school. He composed music specifically for the ensembles at Oshkosh
86 North High School. Consequently, the bands and choirs performed by invitation throughout the United States and Europe.94
Hough-Block was an active participant in the choral program at Oshkosh High
School and during her junior and senior years sang and accompanied in the school’s top choral ensembles, the a cappella choir and the madrigal singers. She also began taking private voice lessons as it was encouraged of all members of the a cappella choir. Hough-
Block recalls that the repertoire sung by the choirs was “legitimate classical music,” but they did a “pop- type” concert in February each year and her senior year the a cappella choir was one of four choirs selected to sing for the Golden Anniversary of the Kiwanis
International Organization at Madison Square Garden. Hough-Block graduated from
Oshkosh High School in the spring of 1965.95
Hough-Block matriculated at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in
Appleton, Wisconsin in the fall of 1965 as a voice major but switched to piano during her second semester. While attending the conservatory, she also studied organ and took three years of voice lessons before graduating with her BM in music education degree in the spring of 1969. Upon graduating from the Lawrence Conservatory of Music, Hough-Block taught 2 years of elementary general music in the state of Connecticut before attending The
University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana for further studies. During her year at the
University of Illinois (1971/1972) Hough-Block studied with prolific music educator Dr.
Charles Leonhard. Hough-Block recalls that one-day in his theory class, Leonhard spoke for
20 minutes about the amazing music program in the Boise Public School District in Boise,
Idaho. He had just returned from a conference in Boise where he attended a veteran’s day
94 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 14, 2016. 95 Oshkosh High School Yearbook, The Notebook ‘65, 1965, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 36-38.
87 performance featuring all of the junior and senior high school choirs from the school district and he told the students in his theory class that he had never seen a junior high program as good as the one in Boise. After graduating from the University of Illinois in the spring of 1972, Hough-Block applied for and was hired by Howard Freeman to teach at
West Junior High School in the Boise School District beginning in the fall of the 1972/1973 school year.96
Sue Hough-Block – The West Junior High School Choral Program and the Swing Choir
When Hough-Block arrived at West Junior High School, she was the third choral director in 3 years; her immediate predecessor was Connie White. During her tenure at
West the number of students participating in the choral program ranged between 200-300 students and there were years when she took up to seven groups to the Boise School
District Junior High School Large Group Festival. The curricular choirs at West Junior High
School consisted of a 7th-grade mixed chorus; an 8th-grade girl’s choir; an 8th and 9th- grade concert choir; and the 8th and 9th-grade Swing Choir (see fig. 4.9). Hough-Block also directed several non-curricular choirs at West Junior High School including two small barbershop groups one for boys (barbershop) and one for girls (beauty shop) which many of the Swing Choir students participated in; and a 7th-grade swing choir which met either before or after school and during lunch.97
96 George N. Heller, Charles Leonhard: American Music Educator, (N.J. & London: Scarecrow Press, 1995) 78. 97 West Junior High School Yearbook, Montesa 76, 1976, Boise, Idaho, 39-41.
88
Figure 4.9. The West Junior High School Swing Choir (1975 - Sue Hough-Block, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Hough-Block selected between 24 and 30 vocalists annually for the Swing Choir (see fig. 4.10); she considered a student’s ability to vocally blend and be a “team player” paramount when selecting students for the ensemble. During the audition process, she tested each student’s ear by having them sing back several melodic passages she played on the piano and tested their vocal and rhythmic sight reading abilities by having them sing and clap back several pre-determined exercises. The ability of the student to hold their vocal part while she was singing another part against them was also an important part of the audition during Hough-Block’s tenure at the school. A standard jazz trio consisting of piano, bass, and drums accompanied the Swing Choir. Combo members sang with the choir during the vocal part learning stage of the rehearsal process. Hough-Block believed that by
89 having the trio rehearse how to sing the arrangements, they learned where they could and could not play aggressively in the arrangement.98
The Swing Choir girls wore a skirt and either a vest or a blouse and the boys wore dress pants and a dress shirt with either a tie or vest. Annually, the choir participated in the
Fall, Christmas, Pre-Festival, and Pops concerts hosted by the West Junior High choral program, they performed 15 to 20 times a year for business parties and community events held in the Boise Valley particularly during the Christmas season, and attended at least one vocal jazz festival and the Boise School District Junior High School Large Group Festival during the second semester. As district policy mandated that ensemble members be concurrently enrolled in the large 8th and 9th-grade concert choir as well as the swing choir, students in the swing choir also participated in the combined district wide Fall
Concert Choir Clinic and Boise Music Week performances.99
Figure 4.10. The West Junior High School Swing Choir (1976 - Sue Hough-Block, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
98 West Junior High School Yearbook, Montesa 75, 1975, Boise, Idaho, 73. 99 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016.
90 Sue Hough-Block - The University of Idaho Jazz Festival / Vocal Jazz Literature /
Early Junior High School Vocal Jazz Ensembles in the Boise Valley
According to Hough-Block, all of the Boise School District junior highs who participated in vocal jazz ensemble singing (Fairmont Junior High School – Bruce Walker and Cathy Gilk, directors/ West Junior High School – Sue Hough-Block and Paul Olson, directors/ East Junior High School – Rob Newburn, director/ and Hillside Junior High
School – Jerry Sanford, director) also participated in the University of Idaho Jazz Festival since it was the only large vocal jazz festival that included a division specifically for junior high/middle school choirs during the 1970s. The festival was in Idaho, making it easy to travel to with junior high students. When speaking about the junior high school Swing
Choirs from the Boise School District participating in The University of Idaho Jazz Festival,
Hough-Block remarked, “The Boise junior high schools were always the best ones there.”100
Hough-Block and her choir attended the festival two or three times, “before the event became too commercial,” during her tenure at the school (1972-1981). On one of those occasions there was a tie for first place in the junior high school division between
West Junior High School (Sue Hough-Block, Director) and Hillside Junior High School (Jerry
Sanford, Director). There was supposed to be a sing-off between the two groups but instead, Hillside was given first place at the awards ceremony. It was later determined that day performance scores determined the winner in the junior high school division, contrary to the sing-offs in the high school divisions. 101
According to Hough-Block, most of the junior highs participating in the early vocal jazz ensemble singing movement in the Boise Valley were inserting “some” jazz concepts
100 Catherine Gilk, online questionnaire by author, November 28, 2016. 101 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December14, 2016.
91 into popular music “but it was nothing like the concept of jazz you would see today.” When she first started teaching at West Junior High School, Hough-Block felt comfortable teaching swing choir literature but as festivals became more vocal jazz oriented and groups started singing more vocal jazz literature she felt lost, and to this day she declares, vocal jazz is not my strength. Although she took two semesters of jazz piano at the University of Illinois during her master’s studies, the jazz style never felt “natural” to her and she struggled to
“hear” the characteristics she felt she was supposed to add to make her ensembles interpretations “more jazz like.” While teaching at West Junior High School, Hough-Block began listening to vocal jazz recordings in order to familiarize herself with the jazz style and she credits Ella Fitzgerald and Jerry Vevig and his Capital Singers for being her earliest role models in vocal jazz style and interpretation.102
Hough-Block believes that the vocal jazz festivals occurring throughout the northwest region were the catalyst for the growth in the performance of vocal jazz ensemble type literature by Boise Valley area directors and schools. “It started at the college level in the Pacific Northwest with people like Dave Barduhn (Edmonds & Mount
Hood Community Colleges) and Frank Demiero (Edmonds Community College), when they started judging some of the festivals and emphasizing the jazz even more.” Because most of the high school groups in the Boise area were attending these vocal jazz festivals and their directors wanted them to be successful it trickled down to the junior high schools. “In order to prepare the students for high school singing in the Boise School District, junior highs began doing more jazz literature,” recalls Hough-Block. She used many arrangements by Ed
Lojeski (see fig. 4.11) and Joyce Eilers, with the Swing Choir at West Junior High School. She
102 Capital Singers, The Capital Singers 1977, 1977, Don Cederstrom Custom Recording, LP.
92 felt that Eilers was one of the first good writers/arrangers for junior high school students as her arrangements were appropriate for the age and skill level of the students. The majority of arrangements Hough-Block chose to perform with the swing choir were set for
SATB voices with little to no division of parts and included little to no space for vocal improvisation. When there was space for scatting in the arrangements, “we experimented,” recalls Hough-Block.103
Fig. 4.11. An advertisement promoting the early music of Ed Lojeski - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
103 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016
93 Sue Hough-Block taught at West Junior High School for 9 years (1972/1973 –
1980/1981) when she moved to Albany, Oregon to teach at South Albany High School. Paul
Olson replaced Hough-Block at West, in the fall of 1981.104
104 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December14, 2016.
94 CHAPTER FIVE
MERIDIAN AND NEW PLYMOUTH SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – LONNIE CLINE AND
MOYLE BROWN, DIRECTORS
Vocal jazz ensemble singing began to spread beyond the Boise School District in
1973 when Lonnie Cline (see fig. 5.1) moved from East Junior High in the Boise School
District to start the first vocal jazz ensemble at Meridian High School in Joint School District
Number Two, in neighboring Meridian, Idaho.105
Fig. 5.1. Lonnie Cline - photo courtesy of the subject.
Lonnie Cline – Early Biography and Teaching Career
Lonnie Cline was born on January 15, 1947 in Wendell, Idaho. He attended St. John’s
Lutheran Parochial School, in Buhl, Idaho, for the 1st through 5th grades; and Heyburn
105 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
95 Junior High School, in Heyburn, Idaho, for 6th and 7th grades. Cline’s parents “weren’t all that musical,” but his father liked to sing and his mother sang in the church choir. He was involved in music throughout his upbringing and directed his first church choir, in
Mountain Home, Idaho, when he was 13 years old. While attending Mountain Home Junior
High and High School, he assembled and led several small extra-curricular vocal ensembles while also serving as the student director for the choral programs. Cline graduated from
Mountain Home High School in the spring of 1967 and enrolled at Idaho State University, in
Pocatello, Idaho, in the fall of the same year.106
At the Idaho State University, Cline chose to go into music education, rather than microbiology, as he felt that directing choirs would be something he would enjoy doing for the rest of his life. As he had done in high school, Cline served as the student director for the choral ensembles he participated in at ISU, from his sophomore through senior years.
Cline remembered that there was nothing going on in the “jazz realm” at ISU while he was attending the university but he did have opportunities to perform pop tunes as a soloist with the stage band. “The tunes were by the pop group Chicago, so it wasn’t even the blues or anything remotely close to jazz. I had no formal training when it came to jazz until I started teaching.” Lonnie Cline graduate from Idaho State University in 1971 with a BA in
Music Education (Choral Specialist) Degree; and began teaching at East Junior High in
Boise, Idaho in the fall of 1972.107
Lonnie Cline heard his first popular style choral ensemble, the Capital Singers directed by Jerry Vevig, during his initial year of teaching (1972/1973) in the Boise School
106 Lonnie Cline, Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016. 107 Idaho State University Yearbook, Wickiup Yearbook 1971, 1971, Pocatello, Idaho, 248.
96 District. He was so inspired by the group that he started a Swing Choir that sang pop tunes, including Diamond Girl by Seales and Croft. In the fall of 1973, Cline accepted a position at the neighboring Joint School District Number Two to teach at both Meridian Junior High and Senior High Schools. At that time, Meridian High School was the only high school in the district and there were three junior high schools: Meridian Junior High, Lowell Scott Junior
High, and Lake Hazel Junior High. During his 4-year tenure in the district, Cline taught over
350 students in several curricular and non-curricular choral ensembles each year at the two schools. When Cline first arrived in the district, he conducted one large choir (150 members) at Meridian Junior High. While at Meridian High School he conducted: a sophomore choir of 100 voices, an a cappella choir (comprised of juniors & seniors) with
120 voices, and a jazz choir, which he established during his first year in the district. Cline and his students named the ensemble the New Dimensions (see fig 5.2).108
Fig. 5.2. Lonnie Cline conducts the New Dimensions at Meridian High School - photo courtesy of the subject.
108 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa 74, 1974, Meridian, Idaho, 78-81.
97 Lonnie Cline – The New Dimensions
The New Dimensions consisted of 24 to 30 vocalists accompanied by piano, bass, and drums. Occasionally, depending on “what the chart called for,” other instruments such as: guitar, trumpet, alto/ tenor/and baritone saxophone, and sections such as: brass and saxophone, were added to the combo. Each year, the group participated in annual choral concerts held at Meridian High School; and performed regularly for events and business parties held throughout the Boise Treasure Valley. In performance, Cline amplified the ensemble by using three area microphones. Cline would place one baby boom stand in the center of the group, and two straight stands on the sides and the vocalists would huddle around them and sing (see fig. 5.3).109
In performance, the group wore dressy outfits that were usually coordinated in some fashion. The ensemble often stood in a mixed (soprano/bass/alto/tenor) order, with the ensemble’s two first sopranos in the middle of the group. During auditions for the ensemble, Cline tested his students’ musical recall by playing a pitch sequence and asking them to sing it back to him. He also required them to sight-read. While both aural perception and sight-reading skills were important to Cline, he considered his three D’s,
“Dedication, Determination, and Discipline,” of equal significance when granting students membership in the Choir. Cline taught and spoke of the “three D’s” in all of the choral training ensembles at Meridian High School, and he watched each student in class to determine whether they possessed the three qualities. Often students who possessed the
“three D’s” in abundance were selected for the New Dimensions over students with superior musical abilities and a lack of “Dedication, Determination, and Discipline.” The
109 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa 75, 1975, Meridian, Idaho, 80.
98 New Dimensions generated enough interest in vocal jazz singing for Cline to establish a second, non- curricular, vocal jazz ensemble in his second year at Meridian High School.
This “training” ensemble rehearsed before school and during lunch hour.110
Fig. 5.3. The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1974 - Lonnie Cline, director) in performance - photo courtesy of the subject.
Lonnie Cline – Early Vocal Jazz Literature and Festivals
According to Cline, it was typical in the Boise Valley for schools to have specialty choirs that performed music associated with a specific genre- there were choirs that specialized in Madrigals and Classical Chamber Music, Jazz Music, and others that performed a combination of Classical, Pop, Show, Patriotic, Folk, and Vocal Jazz tunes. Cline considered the New Dimensions “strictly” a vocal jazz ensemble as he modeled the group after Hal Malcolm’s vocal jazz ensemble from Mt. Hood Community College who performed
110 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa 76, 1976, Meridian, Idaho, 116 & 117.
99 arrangements that allowed for innovation and creativity within the ensemble. The Capital
Singers, under the direction of Jerry Vevig, were the first vocal ensemble Cline remembers hearing sing jazz charts; such as Dave Barduhn’s Am I Blue, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and Route 66.111
Cline proudly proclaims that he obtained the vocal jazz literature he performed with the ensemble, “Everywhere.” If Cline heard an arrangement he liked and wanted, at vocal jazz festivals, he would approach the director of the group performing the arrangement, and ask them where he could find it. He also recalls that Hal Leonard and Creative World were the two publishing companies distributing vocal jazz literature during the 1970s.
From 1974 through 1977, along with published arrangements, Cline and the New
Dimensions performed many unpublished arrangements including Greetings and
Salutations arranged by Steve Christopherson and Sue Harris, Bye Bye Blackbird and Give
Me A Song With A Beautiful Melody arranged by Alan Yankee, Oh What A Beautiful Morning arranged by Hal Malcolm, and Exactly Like You arranged by Vern Swain. Cline also recalls performing several “lifts” of tunes by the Manhattan Transfer, which were transcribed by
John Ward, during his years of directing vocal jazz ensembles in the Boise Valley.112
Cline took the New Dimensions to the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival at Mt. Hood
Community College during his first year at Meridian High School because students from outstanding high school choral programs around the state participated in festivals. He decided to attend the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival because his mentor, Jerry Vevig, had recommended it, and because he was aware that Borah High School, under the direction of
111 Meridian High School Yearbook,”Chorus Renders Jazz,” Mana Ha Sa 75, 1975, 80. 112 Creative World Music Publications, “Music For Vocal Jazz Ensemble,” Advertisement, National Association of Jazz Educators Journal, Vol. VI, no. 4 (February 1974), 45.
100 Vern Swain, would be attending. During the event, Cline and his group experienced Waldo
King’s ground breaking vocal jazz ensemble from Roosevelt High School in Seattle,
Washington, for the first time. Roosevelt was always the top ensemble in the AAAA division, and a “must hear” for ensembles attending the event. On at least two occasions, the New Dimensions (see figs. 5.4 & 5.5) followed Roosevelt in the daily performance schedule at the festival. Cline remembers, “So, they’d perform and the room would ‘fall out’ because it was so ‘killing, dead on, and hip’ and then people would just get up and leave as we were being introduced.” The Mt. Hood festival was the largest and most competitive festival in the Northwest region and Cline believed throughout his career, “If you could win at Mt. Hood that really meant that you were something in vocal jazz.”113
Fig. 5.4. The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1975 - Lonnie Cline, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
113 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 17, 1974. .
101
Fig. 5.5. The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1976 – Lonnie Cline, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
During his tenure at Meridian High School, Lonnie and The New Dimensions also participated in the Reno International Jazz Festival, the University of Idaho Jazz Festival on a regular basis. They were also one of the initial groups from the Boise Valley to participate in the vocal division, first initiated by Byron Gjerde in 1974, at the Columbia Basin College
Jazz Unlimited Festival in Pasco, Washington (founded in 1971). According to Lonnie Cline, his early participation in vocal jazz festivals provided him and his vocal jazz ensembles with three important things: (a) reinforcement for what they were already doing well, (b) motivation to get better musically, and (c) inspiration to try new musical things.114
114 Lonnie Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016.
102 Lonnie Cline – Southern Idaho Conference Vocal Jazz Festival and Exchange Concerts
In 1975, Cline founded and hosted the first Southern Idaho Conference Vocal Jazz
Festival, at Meridian High School and he invited adjudicators that were highly respected in the northwest vocal jazz scene: Hal Malcolm, Waldo King, Frank Demiero, Byron Gjerde,
Dave Cross, and Dave Barduhn. The festival was competitive and included divisions for both junior and senior high schools with 20-minute clinics provided by one of the adjudicators with the ensemble and director. Clinics occurred in a separate room immediately following the ensemble’s 20–minute performance on the main performance stage. In 1975, the clinic aspect employed by Cline at the Southern Idaho Conference Jazz
Festival had become standard at all of the vocal jazz festivals in the region except for the
Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival.115
While Cline was at Meridian high school, he and the New Dimensions (see fig. 5.6) often hosted vocal jazz exchange concerts, and invited other schools from the Boise Valley to participate. He did this to relieve some of the tension created by the constant competition between the area ensembles. Cline recalls that the first year he hosted the exchange he invited Jerry Vevig and the Capital Singers to participate, the second year he invited Vern Swain and The Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble to participate, and the third year, he invited both ensembles. Cline recalls that the event turned out well and vocal jazz ensemble singing continued to grow in the Boise Valley. 116
115 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016. 116 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 77, 1977, Boise, Idaho, 83. .
103
Fig. 5.6. The Meridian High School New Dimension (1975 -Lonnie Cline, director) in performance - photo courtesy of the subject.
Bruce Walker – Lowell Scott Junior High School
Bruce Walker, who left Fairmont Junior High in the Spring of 1974, returned to the
Boise area after a year of graduate study in music at Brigham Young University; and joined
Cline in the Meridian School District in the fall of the 1975/1976 school year to help him build “a choral dynasty” in Joint School District Number Two. His first year in the district,
Walker taught at Lowell Scott Junior High for three periods and Meridian Junior High
School for two periods. One of the reasons the District hired Walker was because he was an excellent recruiter and by Walker’s second year in the district, there were enough students enrolled in choir at Lowell Scott Junior High for him to be at the school full-time. While at
Lowell Scott Junior High School Walker had a Swing Choir similar to the one he had at
Fairmont. Walker enjoyed his musical partnership with Lonnie Cline and recalled that,
“Lonnie was a really likeable guy.” In the spring of 1977, Lonnie Cline left the Meridian
School District and the Boise Valley, in order to pursue a master’s degree in choral conducting at The University of Oregon in Eugene. Bruce Walker moved from Lowell Scott
104 junior high in the fall of 1977, to succeeded Cline at Meridian High School. Walker would remain at Meridian high school for four years, from 1976/1977 – 1979/1980. 117
During the same academic year (1972/1973) Lonnie Cline began experimenting with vocal jazz singing in the schools of the Boise metropolitan area. Moyle Brown (see fig.
5.7) was also starting his first swing choir at New Plymouth High School, in rural New
Plymouth, Idaho, 50 miles northeast of Boise. During the era investigated, the population of the city of New Plymouth was 1,200 and the population of the high school was 250 students. 118
Fig. 5.7. Moyle Brown - photo courtesy of the subject’s daughter.
Moyle Brown – Early Biography
Moyle Brown was born, on April 28, 1928, in Weiser, Idaho. His parents both enjoyed music and his mother played the piano and sang for various community functions
117 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa 78, 1978, Meridian, Idaho, 116-121. 118 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
105 in Weiser. Brown was involved in music from an early age and he studied privately with a local woman who taught singing, piano, and dancing. He often performed in plays and operettas directed by his early teacher and he sang and played in the choir and band while attending Weiser High School in the mid 1940s. After graduating from Weiser High School,
Brown attended and graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in music. While attending the university, he took private voice lessons and sang many leading baritone roles in the school’s opera productions. After graduating from Brigham Young
University in the early 50s, Brown taught music in the Weiser School District before moving to New Plymouth, Idaho in 1954.119
From 1954 through 1990, Brown served the New Plymouth School District by teaching all grade levels. At the junior high school, he taught both a 7th and an 8th-grade choir. At the high school, he taught two choir classes which he combined into one large ensemble called the Concert Choir for performances and festivals. Throughout his career,
Brown directed many smaller non-curricular vocal ensembles in addition to his choir classes at the junior high and high school. For several years, he had a very well-known girls sextet as well as a glee club. Along with the choir classes at the junior high and high school,
Brown taught a variety of courses for the New Plymouth School District, including: elementary music, beginning band, junior high and high school band, and high school speech and drama.120
119 Brigham Young University Yearbook, The Banyon 1950, 1950, Provo, Utah, 401. 120 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
106 Moyle Brown – The New Plymouth Swing Choir / Bel Canto Jazz
In the fall of 1972, Brown formed a non-curricular swing choir at New Plymouth
High School. He changed the ensemble name from swing choir to Bel Canto Jazz in the
1980/1981 school year as festivals in the Northwest region had become more vocal jazz ensemble specific. Bel Canto Jazz contained 20 to 30 members who were selected annually from the school’s concert choir and rehearsals for the ensemble occurred each day for 20 to
30 minutes before school. Annually, Bel Canto Jazz served as entertainment for the Co-Ed
Ball held at New Plymouth High School each fall; they sang in the Fall, Holiday, and Spring concerts, hosted by the music department at the high school and performed for many parties and business dinners in New Plymouth and surrounding communities throughout the year.121
By the late 1970s, Bel Canto Jazz was so popular in the New Plymouth community that grade school children talked about how they could not wait to get to high school and sing in the ensemble. When selecting students for the ensemble, Brown chose those who were musically gifted and “had a good work ethic and wanted to be there.” In auditions for the ensemble Brown had each student (a) sing major scales a cappella (to check range, vocal color, & pitch), (b) sing America the Beautiful (to determine if they could accurately sing the octave jump in the middle), (c) sing a solo of their choice in front of the concert choir class, and: (d) sing a few more difficult scales (minor & chromatic) to distinguish between auditionees.122
For performances, the girls wore either homemade dresses or a skirt/blouse combination and the boys wore either a suit or dress pants and shirts with a tie or vest.
121 New Plymouth High School Yearbook, Reflections, 1979, New Plymouth, Idaho, 73. 122 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
107 The boys’ outfits always coordinated by either material, color, or design, with the girls’ (see fig. 5.8). Bel Canto Jazz stood on two or three sets of four step choral risers in standing formations that varied depending on the “vocal sound Brown was after.” Sometimes he placed the ensemble in a mixed (boy/girl) formation and sometimes the girls stood on the front two rows while the boys stood on the back two rows. The choral program at New
Plymouth High School owned a full soundboard, which helped amplify Bel Canto Jazz during performances by employing two boom stands holding area microphones and several individual solo microphones. For several years, Brown placed acoustic panels,
“complete with the ‘Bel Canto Jazz’ name across them,” (see fig. 5. 9) behind the choir during performances. The panels, which had been constructed by parents, were lost to a fire at the school in 1984.”123
Fig. 5.8. The New Plymouth High School Swing Choir (1975 - Moyle Brown, director) - photo courtesy of the subject’s daughter.
123 New Plymouth High School Yearbook, Pilgrim 84, 1984, New Plymouth, Idaho, 50 & 58-59.
108
Fig. 5.9. The New Plymouth High School Bel Canto Jazz (1974 – Moyle Brown, director) performing - photo courtesy of the subject’s daughter.
The accompaniment group for Bel Canto Jazz was consistently comprised of a standard jazz trio of piano, drums, and string bass. Depending on the arrangement they were performing, a guitar and horn section were occasionally added. Music was big at New
Plymouth High School in the 1970s and 1980s and Brown never struggled to find students to play in the combo. The combo was often handpicked by Brown and they rehearsed both separate from as well as with the vocal ensemble. In performance, Brown often featured the rhythm section by giving them solo space within the arrangements. On occasion, individual combo members sang scat solos at concerts and festivals to the acclaim of both audiences and adjudicators. On a cappella ballads, Brown had the combo join the choir on the risers to sing, as they all had very good musical ears and voices.124
124 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
109 Moyle Brown – Vocal Jazz Festivals
Other than performing extensively in the New Plymouth area Bel Canto Jazz also attended one or two local vocal jazz festivals and took one out of state trip to a festival each year. The first out of state trip occurred in the spring of 1974, when Brown took the ensemble to a vocal choir competition held at the World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington (see fig. 5.10). The ensemble experienced their first vocal jazz style festival the following year
(1975), when Brown entered the swing choir in the Reno International Jazz Festival in
Reno, Nevada.125
Fig. 5.10. A school newspaper clipping about the New Plymouth High School Swing Choir’s first out of state trip - photo courtesy of the subject’s daughter.
During their day performance at the Reno International Jazz Festival, the swing choir sang several arrangements including one inspired by the pop group Chicago.
125 New Plymouth High School Yearbook, Pilgrim “75,” 1975, New Plymouth, Idaho, 33.
110 Their daytime adjudication scores were high enough for them to place in the evening sing- off competition. While they were waiting to perform, another choir director approached
Brown to offer him some advice. He encouraged Moyle to have the ensemble use a breathier tone in certain places of their arrangements. As Brown was new to the vocal jazz teaching, willing to take advice, and courageous, singers were encouraged to use a breathier sound in the final competition. Consequently, they were awarded the first place trophy in the A (smallest school population) division at the festival.126
The experience at the Reno International Jazz Festival was overwhelmingly positive for Brown and his ensemble. According to his daughter Lisa, they were so intrigued with the new things they had learned that they were eager to get home to learn and implement more. When attending vocal jazz-type festivals, Brown would take note of things he liked about other choirs’ performances and would often implement those things into his own teaching and programming. He also spent a great deal of time listening to the adjudicator feedback tapes he received after participating in each festival and applied the suggestions provided to his interpretations with “Bel Canto Jazz.”127
Festival participation and the critique they provided along with hours of listening to outstanding recordings of vocal jazz ensembles taught Brown, “what was expected at competitions.” Over the years, Brown’s groups often took top honors in the A division
(smallest high school population) at the many competitive festivals they attended throughout the 1970s and 1980s including: The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival in Gresham,
OR., The Reno Nevada International Jazz Festival in Reno, NV, The University of Idaho Jazz
Festival in Moscow, ID, The Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival in Pasco, WA, The
126 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017. 127 Ibid.
111 Pleasant Hill Vocal Jazz Festival in Pleasant Hill, OR, and other vocal jazz festivals held in
Nyssa, Ontario, Pendleton, and Newport, OR, Spokane, WA, and Boise, ID.128
Since they consistently displayed excellence in vocal jazz performance, Brown and
Bel Canto Jazz (see fig. 5.11) were invited by John Carrico, the founder of the Reno
International Jazz Festival to be a part of a 4-week, 7-country European concert tour in the summer of 1978. On the trip, students from New Plymouth, Idaho sang in and experienced
Germany, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, England, Holland, and Belgium.129
Fig. 5.11. The New Plymouth High School Swing Choir (1976 - Moyle Brown, director) at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival in Gresham, Oregon - photo courtesy of the subject’s daughter.
128 Dave Barduhn, “Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival Winners,” Mt. Hood Community College, May 2017. 129 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
112 Moyle Brown – Vocal Jazz Literature
When the ensemble began in the fall of 1972, the New Plymouth High School Swing choir performed several styles of music including: swing, country, soft rock, as well as other
“popular hits of the day.” As the regional festivals continued to become more “strictly jazz oriented” in the 70s, not only did the ensemble’s name change from swing choir to Bel
Canto Jazz, but by 1979/1980, the ensemble began focusing almost exclusively on vocal jazz literature. SATB, with some soprano divisi, was the common scoring for vocal jazz arrangements sung by Bel Canto Jazz, and Kirby Shaw was Brown’s favorite vocal jazz arranger. Kirby Shaw literature dominated the vocal jazz sets of Bel Canto Jazz so much over the years that Brown called Shaw and invited him to hear his music performed at the
Swing Choir/Bel Canto Jazz ensembles 25th reunion held in New Plymouth, Idaho in 1998.
“Shaw was very interested in hearing all about the reunion and was so in hopes he could be there, but his schedule wouldn’t allow it,”130 recalls Brown’s daughter Lisa.
Between 1973 and 1990, Bel Canto Jazz also sang published arrangements by Dave
Barduhn, Anita Kerr, Gene Puerling, Steve Zegree, Ed Lojeski, Chuck Cassey, Bill Sanford, and Martin Behnke. Several of the arrangements Brown did with the ensemble had sections that were appropriate for vocal improvisation. In order for his students to get the “feel” for scat singing, Brown played recordings of professional artists for them and then had them imitate what they heard. His daughter Lisa recalls, “some got the hang of it and some didn't.
Those who did, got to sing the scat solos.”131 During the years the ensemble focused heavily on jazz literature (1981 - 1990), they continued to sing a variety of popular music styles in
130 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017. 131 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
113 order to balance out their programs.132
Moyle Brown, and his wife, grew up in the big band era and raised their children with an appreciation for big band, swing, and jazz music. Brown’s daughter, Lisa, remembers listening to records of the big bands and jazz artists from her “parents’ day” during her upbringing. “Jazz music was my father’s passion while he was growing up and he was thrilled that the songs from his own school days were finding their way to a new generation through vocal jazz arrangements and competitions.” After 36 years of service
(1954-1990), Moyle Brown retired from New Plymouth High School. 133
132 New Plymouth High School Yearbook, Pilgrim 85, 1985, New Plymouth, Idaho, 64. 133 Lisa Brown-Buetler, online questionnaire by author, January 21, 2017.
114 CHAPTER SIX
EAST AND FAIRMONT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – ROB NEWBURN AND CATHY GILK,
DIRECTORS
In the mid to late 1970s, around the time that Moyle Brown’s swing choir at New
Plymouth high school began to focus on vocal jazz ensemble literature; two new teachers,
Rob Newburn (see fig. 6.1) and Cathy Gilk, were starting their careers in the junior high schools of the Boise School District.
Fig. 6.1. Rob Newburn - photo courtesy of the subject.
Rob Newburn – Early Life and Musical Biography
Rob Newburn was born December 12, 1952, at Providence Hospital in Portland,
Oregon. His family was musical as both his father and grandfather grew up playing in big
115 bands and his mother played piano at church throughout her life. Rob and his four siblings all participated in school music programs as their parents encouraged music participation.
Newburn attended Union Gap Elementary School from Kindergarten through 2nd grade before his family moved to Walla Walla, WA, where he finished the rest of his elementary schooling. It was in elementary school, while his class was learning the National Anthem, that his teacher singled him out as having a “beautiful soprano voice.” Newburn also took private trumpet and piano lessons while attending elementary school.134
In 1964, he began secondary school at Pioneer Junior High School in Walla Walla where he participated in both the instrumental and choral programs headed by Roberta
Abraham. Newburn calls Abraham his first mentor and credits her for nurturing him. At
Walla Walla High School, Newburn sang in the choir under the direction of Dick Clark and played trombone in the band. In his senior year of high school, he caught the teaching bug when the superintendent of the Walla Walla School District asked him to direct the band at
Garrison Junior High School as they were struggling and could not find a teacher to fill the position permanently. 135
Newburn graduated from Walla Walla High School in the spring of 1970 and enrolled at Northwest Nazarene College (Nampa, ID) in the fall of the 1970/1971 academic year. He chose to attend Northwest Nazarene College, where many of his friends were going, despite receiving a full scholarship offer from Washington State University. Newburn began to focus strictly on choral music rather than instrumental music at Northwest
Nazarene College and he remembers fondly singing in the school’s choral ensembles under
134 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016. 135 Walla Walla High School Yearbook, The1969 Royal Blue, 1969, Walla Walla, Washington, 134-137.
116 the direction of Dr. Marvin Bloomquist. He graduated from Northwest Nazarene College in the spring of 1974 with a BA in music education and began his teaching career at North
Albany Junior High School (Albany, OR) in the fall of 1974. While at North Albany Junior
High School, Newburn built a large choral program by recruiting students from the general music classes he was hired to teach.136
Rob Newburn - East Junior High School and the Swing Choir
Newburn left North Albany Junior High School to teach choir in the Boise School
District at East Junior High School in the fall of the 1975/1976 school year. Before his arrival at East Junior High School, there had been a steady rotation of directors in the position including Lonnie Cline (1972/1973), Sam Thompson (1973/1974), and Dan
Peterman (1974/1975). In the mid-70s, East Junior High School was the third most populated junior high school in the Boise School District behind Fairmont (900 students) and West (800 students) with a population of 700 students. There were 100 students participating in the choral program when Newburn arrived at the school and he expanded the program to include more than 300 students by the end of his tenure at the school in
1992. Throughout his time at East Junior High School, the choral curriculum consisted of five curricular choirs: a 7th-grade Choir, an 8th-grade Men’s Choir, an 8th-grade Women’s
Choir, a 9th-grade a cappella choir, and a mixed specialty ensemble called the Swing
Choir.137
Directing the swing choir at East Junior High School provided Newburn with the opportunity to encounter vocal jazz style music for the first time. When he arrived in Boise, his district junior high school colleagues, Sue Hough-Block and Jerry Sanford at West and
136 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016. 137 East Junior High School Yearbook, The Sting 83, 1983, Boise, Idaho, 28 & 29.
117 Hillside Junior High Schools, were already performing selections in the style and participating in the University of Idaho Jazz Festival. Newburn followed their lead and quickly started teaching the genre on a regular basis. He soon grew to value vocal jazz because he felt it allowed his students to explore themselves and their emotional connection to music. 138
A few years after he arrived at East Junior High School, Newburn renamed the swing choir the Mad-Jazz Singers as the ensemble performed madrigals and vocal jazz music almost exclusively. Throughout his career, Newburn continued to teach madrigals and other choral styles with the ensemble, as he believed his students should be well-rounded musicians. Often, he would start the year by teaching madrigals because he felt they were the perfect vehicle for his group to learn to lock into four-part harmony as an ensemble.
Newburn selected the group annually, each spring, with membership being somewhere between 20 and 28 vocalists per year. The number varied as Newburn considered the vocal balance between male and female singers paramount and the group was only as large as the number of competent male singers available to Newburn. Because the Mad-Jazz Singers
(see fig. 6.2) were a vocally balanced group, Newburn was able to program vocal jazz arrangements in a wide variety of voicings including: SAB, SATB, SSATB, and SSATBB, throughout his tenure at East Junior High School.139
138 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016. 139 Mad-Jazz Singers, The Mad Jazz Singers ’83, 1983, Don Cederstrom Custom Recording, Cassette.
118
Fig. 6.2. The East Junior High School Mad-Jazz Singers (1983 - Rob Newburn, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
The audition process for the Mad-Jazz Singers, consisted of repeating a series of pitches (vocal echo) and sight-reading exercises (both rhythmic & melodic), as singing in tune and sight-reading ability along with a strong work ethic were important criteria for membership in the ensemble. Each year, Newburn looked to form a cohesive ensemble and he considered the overall group dynamic when selecting ensemble members. During the
70s and 80s, all of the students in the ensemble were required to be dually enrolled in the
9th-grade a cappella choir in order to participate in the Mad-Jazz Singers. Dual enrollment in a large classical ensemble was district-wide policy for students wanting to participate in a smaller, more select specialty ensemble. Every music program in the Boise School District complied.140
In performances, the girls in the Mad-Jazz Singers wore homemade dresses while the boys wore something that coordinated with the dresses. The ensemble sang on two or
140 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016.
119 three sets of four step choral risers in standing orders that “varied depending on the song.”
The group most often sang unamplified and when they were, it was minimally, with two area microphones used on the choral ensemble and a couple of individual dynamic microphones used for the soloists. The East Junior High School Mad-Jazz Singers participated in the Fall, Holiday and Pre-Festival concerts hosted by the choral program; they sang for adjudication at the Boise School District Junior High School Large Group
Festival and performed in at least two vocal jazz festivals during the second semester. In
1983, East began hosting an annual “vocal jazz solo night” where each Mad-Jazz Singer sang a solo jazz standard for their families and each other. As membership in the ensemble required concurrent enrollment in the 9th-grade a cappella choir, members also performed in that ensemble at four district wide events: (a) the fall Clinic held in October, (b) the
Veteran’s Day performance held in November, (c) the Boise School District Junior High
School Large Group Festival held in April, and (d) the opening concert for “Boise Music
Week” held in May.141
During the 1970s and 1980s, specialty ensembles in the Boise School District were also performing in the Boise community many times throughout the year. Newburn recalls that the then District Superintendent of Music, Howard Freeman, had a policy that his employees not turn down any organization that requested a performance. According to
Newburn, this policy is what made the Boise School system so good. “They made you get out in public. You were the liaison to the public for the school district.” Some years the
Mad-Jazz Singers (see fig. 6.3) sang 30 performances in the Boise community during the
Christmas season alone. Prior to the policy stating that students travel together on a school
141 East Junior High School Jazz Night, Program, Boise, Idaho, May 14, 1983.
120 bus to school-related activities, transportation consisted of carpools, arranged by parents142
Rob Newburn – Early Mentorships and the Rhythm Section
One of Newburn’s early mentors in vocal jazz ensemble singing was Lonnie Cline who was teaching at Meridian High School when Newburn first arrived in Boise. “Cline was one of those guys, that every time you saw him, you just felt like he was your best friend. He was one of the most helpful people around as far as jazz goes,” recalls Newburn. In the late
1970s, Newburn and the swing choir from East Junior High School participated in the
Southern Idaho Conference Vocal Jazz Festival, which was hosted by Cline and his students at nearby Meridian High School. At the festival, Cline influenced the way Newburn worked with his drummer by suggesting that he limit the amount of drum-kit the drummer used.
This technique led to a better balance between the drums and the vocalists, which was a problem for many vocal jazz ensembles of the time.143
Newburn’s accompanying combos for the Mad-Jazz Singers always included piano, bass, and drums, and he consistently utilized student players in the trio. He frequently called on the instrumental department at East Junior High School for his bass players and drummers. Pianists for the ensemble usually emerged from one of the training choirs at the school. When Newburn first introduced a new vocal jazz chart to the Mad-Jazz Singers, he rehearsed the trio and choir separately, only combining the ensemble after the vocalists were confident of their parts. The trio rehearsals occurred before school and at lunch.
During class time, the trio participated in the vocal part learning process alongside the
142 Vern Swain, oral interview by author, Evanston, Wyoming, December 13, 2016. 143 Lonnie Cline, Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016.
121 vocalists. Newburn believed that having the rhythm trio members sing during rehearsals made them realize that they were a part of the group, not the group. Throughout his teaching career, Newburn regularly brought in professional jazz players from the Boise
Valley to work with the rhythm section. Jazz bassist, Patrick Scott was one of those professional players.144
In August of 1976, Frank Demiero founded one of the most highly influential annual educational vocal jazz events in the Northwestern region of the United States, the
Soundsation Vocal Jazz Camp (see fig 6.3). Demiero and his acclaimed ensemble
Soundsation, from Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, WA, hosted the event each year. The weeklong camp featured separate tracks for student vocalist and instrumentalist as well as vocal jazz educators. The faculty included Waldo King, Jack Kunz, Dave Cross,
Kenny Kraintz, Doug Anderson, Kirby Shaw, and Phil Mattson, who were early experts and trend setters in the vocal jazz education field. Newburn began attending the camp sometime in the early 1980s and relished what he learned so much that he began taking his students from East Junior High School in 1983. Newburn holds Demiero in high esteem, saying, “He was kind of like the Godfather to a lot of us, in that he decided he was going to open up this Jazz Camp to help teachers and students learn more and develop…he had an awful lot of influence as to how vocal jazz in the Northwest and Boise became so strong.”145
144 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016. 145 Waldo King. interview by author, transcript, February 2016.
122
Fig. 6.3. An advertisement for the “Soundsation” Jazz Camp as it appeared in the NAJE Educator Journal - photo courtesy of the subject.
Rob Newburn – Phil Mattson/Vocal Jazz Arrangements/ Specific Rehearsal and
Improvisational Techniques
In the early 1980s, Newburn also attended one of the many Vocal Jazz Solo and
Ensemble Workshops hosted by prolific early vocal jazz arranger and educator Phil Mattson
(see fig. 6.4) in Spokane, WA. The workshop focused on rehearsal techniques, but also featured clinics on vocal jazz literature, jazz theory, rhythm sections, vocal arranging, score analysis, and scat singing.146
146 Sheryl Lynn Monkelien, “The Influence of Phil Mattson on Vocal Jazz Education in America: A Case Study” (PhD diss.,University of Nebraska, 2001), 3, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
123
Fig. 6.4. An advertisement for the Phil Mattson Vocal Jazz Solo and Ensemble Workshop as it appeared in the NAJE Educator Journal - photo courtesy of the subject.
Mattson’s professional vocal jazz ensemble the PM Singers and the commercially successful Manhattan Transfer were two of the early professional vocal jazz ensembles to impact Newburn. He and his students were so taken with the Manhattan Transfer, that
Newburn had a mural of their first album cover painted on one of the walls in the East
Junior High School choir room (see fig 6.1, pg. 115) sometime in the early 80s. The Mad-
Jazz Singers also performed several lifts of MT arrangements, including Ocapella, Tuxedo
Junction, and A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.147
Phil Mattson’s arrangement of the George and Ira Gershwin tune S’Wonderful started Kristin Korb (see fig. 6.5) on her path to becoming a professional jazz vocalist/bassist while she was Newburn’s student at East Junior High School (1983-1985).
147 East Junior High School Yearbook, The Sting 84’, 1984, Boise, Idaho, 55.
124 During her 9th-grade year (1985), the second year she played bass for the Mad-Jazz
Singers, Newburn programmed the arrangement and all of the girls in the ensemble including Kristin wanted the opening rubato solo. Korb expressed her desire to sing the solo to Newburn who discouraged her because he needed her to play the bass. Kristin informed him that she could play and sing at the same time, and according to Newburn, “I’ll be danged if that girl didn’t go home that night and come back the next day and blow everyone off their saddles. She not only sang and played, but it was musical, and that was the start of her becoming a bass player and a singer at the same time.”148
Fig. 6.5. The East Junior High School Mad-Jazz Singers (1984 - Rob Newburn, director). Kristin Korb is in the front row, fourth from the left – photo courtesy of the subject.
When programming a set of music for the East Junior High School ensemble to perform, Newburn picked charts he liked and could relate to. He felt that if he didn’t believe in the piece, he could not properly “sell” it to his students. Newburn always included a ballad and two tempo/groove pieces in each set performed by the Mad-Jazz Singers. He
148 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016.
125 favored a cappella ballads to accompanied ballads because he felt they helped develop his students’ ears and sense of ensemble. According to Newburn, arrangers Kirby Shaw, Jack
Kunz (see fig. 6.6), and Kenny Kraintz, were consistently producing vocal jazz literature that “junior high kids could do well” and Newburn often programmed their arrangements with his ensemble. During warm-ups, he also used exercises taken from Shaw’s book Vocal
Jazz Style to teach vocal jazz concepts to his students at East Junior High School. During the
80s, Newburn and the East Junior High School Mad-Jazz Singers performed many difficult vocal jazz arrangements including My Romance by Gene Puerling: New Orleans, Don’t Worry
‘Bout Me, and Route 66, by Dave Barduhn, What The World Needs Now by Jim Jorgenson, as well as the aforementioned Manhattan Transfer transcriptions, and S’Wonderful by Phil
Mattson.149
Fig. 6.6. Jack Kunz - photo courtesy of the subject’s family.
149 Mad-Jazz Singers, The Mad Jazz Singers ’83, 1983, Don Cederstrom Custom Recording, Cassette.
126 For Newburn, the process of interpreting a vocal jazz tune with the singers began with him playing several recorded versions of the tune for the students. The ensemble would discuss what they liked and didn’t like about the recordings and then they would try and apply some of the aspects they liked to their own interpretation. Newburn often required that all of the students audition for the solo sections of their tunes, as he felt this
“got them out of their boxes” and allowed them to be creative on an individual level. Many of the vocal jazz arrangements performed by East contained sections for vocal improvisation. To acquaint his students with scat singing, Newburn would play recordings of professional jazz artists for them to emulate. He would do this every day while the students were arriving for rehearsal, as well as during rehearsal time. Newburn encouraged his students to use space, not ramble, and have a high and low point in their scat solos.150
Rob Newburn – Vocal Jazz Festivals and Competition
Newburn and the East Junior High School Mad Jazz Singers participated in the
University of Idaho Jazz Festival several times during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. By the late 70s, the festival had added a sight-reading component to the vocal division. After each ensemble finished their day performance at the festival, they were taken to a separate location where they were required to sight-read a vocal jazz chart/arrangement. The sight- reading component was scored and at the evening concert a trophy was presented to the sight-reading winner from each festival division (Junior High, Non-Mixed, A, AA, AAA,
AAAA).151
150 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016. 151 Quinn Van Paepeghem, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
127 In addition to the sight-reading component, the festival was now requiring that all ensembles be prepared to perform at least six vocal jazz charts at the festival. In order to enforce this new requirement, each director filled out a sheet prior to performance, assigning a number, between one and six, to each of the six selections. A roll of a large foam dice, just before the ensemble entered the stage for performance, determined which tune of the six selections the ensemble was required to perform during their 20-minute time slot on stage. Newburn felt that the requirement to have six performance-ready songs prepared by late February was really hard to accomplish with a junior high group. Especially one from the Boise School District where there were so many other performance expectations already in place. Despite the rule, Newburn and the Mad-Jazz Singers were highly successful at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival winning the Junior High Division at the event in 1985.152
By the early 1980s, vocal jazz ensemble singing was so popular at East Junior High
School that Newburn had established two non-curricular vocal jazz type ensembles, a 7th and an 8th grade swing choir, to feed into the Mad-Jazz Singers. The groups also played an important role in the Boise School District Junior High School Large Group Festival held in
May. At the event, there was an “All Supreme” choir award given to the junior high program whose ensembles received the most superior ratings. The 7th and 8th grade swing choirs, who rehearsed during the lunch period at East Junior High, were “integral” to winning this award as they provided the program with an opportunity for two more superior ratings at the event.153
152 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016. 153 East Junior High School Yearbook, The Sting 84, 1984, Boise, Idaho, 55.
128 Newburn valued vocal jazz festivals and competitions because he felt like it gave the
Mad-Jazz Singers something to work for. He also firmly believed that his students should be exposed to choirs both of the same age and older in order to improve as an ensemble.
Newburn used the vocal jazz festival setting/experience to develop critical thinking skills in his students. After each festival, they attended Newburn and the Mad-Jazz Singers would discuss what they liked and didn’t like about the different vocal jazz ensembles they heard.
These critical talks lead to musical experimentation, growth, and change for Newburn and the “Mad-Jazz Singers” over the years.154
During the era investigated (inception through 1990), Newburn and the East Junior
High School “Mad-Jazz Singers” attended several other vocal jazz ensemble festivals, including: The Boise State University/District III Vocal Jazz Festival (Boise, Idaho): The
Southern Idaho Vocal Jazz Conference Festival (Meridian, Idaho): The Treasure Valley
Community College Vocal Jazz Festival (Ontario, Oregon): The Nyssa, Oregon Vocal Jazz
Festival (Nyssa, Oregon): The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival (Gresham, Oregon): the Blue
Mountain Community College Vocal jazz Festival (Pendleton, Oregon): and the Columbia
Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival (Pasco, Washington). Newburn taught at East Junior
High School throughout the era investigated in this study (1975-1990). He left the school in
1992 to become the first choral director at Les Bois Junior High School where he remained until his retirement in 2010. During Newburn’s second year of teaching at East Junior High
School (1976/1977), a choral music education student from the University of Idaho named
154 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016.
129 Cathy Gilk (see fig. 6.7) was having a very successful student teaching experience with Jerry
Vevig at Capital High School.155
Fig. 6.7. Cathy Gilk - photo courtesy of the subject.
Cathy Gilk – Early Biography
Cathy Gilk was born August 8, 1955 in Whitefish, Montana and raised in Columbia
Falls. She grew up in a musical home where her mother would sing while her father conducted the record player. His favorite piece was Peer Gynt and Gilck recalls that he was a “fantastic conductor.” Her father was also a jazz fan and she grew up listening to Oscar
Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Art Tatum, Dave Brubeck, Joe Pass, and Buddy
Rich, with him. It was through listening to these jazz records with her father that she got
155 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
130 “excited about jazz” at an early age. Gilk began taking piano lessons in the second grade; and she sang with a female trio, who performed often in the Columbia Falls community, in elementary school. Cathy also participated in school choirs throughout her education
(elementary, junior high, & high school) in School District 6 in Columbia Falls, Montana.156
Gilk began participating in vocal jazz ensemble singing during her 8th- grade school year when she accompanied the Columbia Falls High School Swing/Jazz Choir (Ron Bond, director). Gilk was offered the position since Bond, who was also her private piano teacher, wanted to prepare someone to take the place of the ensemble’s current pianist, who was a senior. In her piano lessons, Gilk was always given a jazz piece to learn, typically from a piano book of Oscar Peterson arrangements. She enjoyed her early participation in jazz, as it was something that felt different from the art music she was required to study. It allowed a certain freedom and flexibility in performing, “It was just cool and hip.”157
While attending Columbia Falls High School, Gilk was also under the tutelage of the school’s jazz band director, Don Lawrence. In addition to leading the high school jazz band, he had his own professional big band called the Don Lawrence Orchestra. Lawrence wrote arrangements for both of his ensembles and Gilk performed some of those arrangements when she sang with the Don Lawrence Orchestra during her high school years. The biggest lesson Gilk’s early jazz mentors taught her was to listen to professional jazz artists with a critical ear. They encouraged her to try what she heard and then make it her own. Phrasing, vocal color, and text emphasis, were some of the specific areas she was encouraged to
156 Catherine Gilk, online questionnaire by author, November 28, 2016. 157 Columbia Falls High School Yearbook, The Wildcat 1970, 1970, Columbia Falls, Montana, 100-102.
131 explore. Gilk attended her first educational vocal jazz festival at the University of Idaho while playing piano for the Columbia Falls High School Swing/Jazz Choir sometime in the early 70s. She also participated in the Montana All-State Choir both her junior and senior years of high school. Gilk graduated from Columbia Falls High School in the spring of 1973 and enrolled at the University of Idaho (Moscow, ID) in the fall of the same year.158
Gilk received additional exposure to jazz education while attending the University of
Idaho, as the style was both popular and valued by the university. She recalls that the university’s big band was “amazing” and she often spent time hanging out with the instrumental “jazzers” from the band at Thursday night jam sessions held at the Garden
Lounge in downtown Moscow. Gilk also accompanied the university swing choir, which performed annually at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival. It was while participating in the festival that Gilk became acquainted with vocal jazz ensembles from the Boise Valley. She specifically recalls hearing the ensembles from Borah High School (Vern Swain, director),
Meridian High School (Lonnie Cline, director), West Junior High School (Sue Hough-Block, director), and Capital High School (Jerry Vevig, director), at the event. Gilk student taught at
Capital High School under the supervision of Jerry Vevig in the spring of 1977; and graduated from the University of Idaho in the spring of the same year with a Bachelor’s of
Music degree in Secondary Vocal Music Education.159
Cathy Gilk – The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir
After graduating from the University of Idaho, Gilk began her 3-year tenure at
Fairmont Junior High School (1977/1978 – 1979/1980). When she arrived, the choral program at the school consisted of four curricular choirs: a Concert Choir of 100 voices,
158 Catherine Gilk, online questionnaire by author, November 28, 2016. 159 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December, 21, 2016..
132 comprised of 9th-grade girls and 8th- and 9th-grade boys, a mixed 7th-grade choir of about
70 students, an 8th-grade girls’ choir of about 50 students: and the swing choir. Under
Gilk’s leadership, the swing choir at Fairmont Junior High School maintained a membership of 32 vocalists and three instrumentalists (piano, bass, & drums - see fig. 6.8). When choosing members for the ensemble, she looked for students who (a) had a pleasant and flexible tone quality, (b) could hold their vocal part, and (c) were dedicated and reliable.160
Figure 6.8. The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1978 – upper & 1979 – Lower / Cathy Gilk, director) - photos courtesy of the subject.
160 Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook, The Falcon 78, 1978, Boise, Idaho, 72.
133 The swing choir performed standing on two or three sets of four-step choral risers in a mixed standing formation (Soprano/Tenor/Alto/Bass) and the ensemble always wore coordinated outfits. During Gilk’s first year at Fairmont Junior High School, the girls wore navy blue dresses with piping, in a yellow print, which matched the boys’ ties; a different year, the girls wore skirts and matching vests with the boys wearing matching ties. “We thought we were so hip,” recalls Gilk. The choir often went without amplification but when they were amplified, the choir used two overhead/boom microphones. A couple of dynamic/close proximity microphones were available for soloists.161
The Fairmont Junior High School swing choir participated in the Fall, Christmas,
Pre-Festival, and Spring Choral concerts hosted by the choral program; they also performed for parties, business and school board meetings, and other functions in the
Boise community particularly during the Christmas season. Additionally, they competed at the Boise School District Junior High School Large Group Festival held in April. Gilk and the
Fairmont Junior High School swing choir also attended the University of Idaho Jazz Festival all 3 years she taught at the school and took first place in the junior high division every time. At vocal jazz festivals, Gilk valued hearing groups that sang varied styles of songs
(Latin, funk, shuffle, ballad, waltz, etc.) and used different types of vocal colors (breathy, brassy, & everything in between). She also found new arrangements to interpret with the
Fairmont Swing Choir (see fig. 6.9) while attending the University of Idaho Jazz Festival and other similar vocal jazz-themed festivals, clinics, and events.162
161 Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook, The Falcon 79, 1979, Boise, Idaho, 72. 162 Catherine Gilk, online questionnaire by author, November 28, 2016.
134
Fig. 6.9. The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1978 - Cathy Gilk, director) performing at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject.
Cathy Gilk – Arrangements/Sound of Boise Groups/Rhythm Section
Most of the vocal jazz style arrangements Gilk used with her swing choir at Fairmont
Junior High were commonly published by Hal Leonard and arranged by Kirby Shaw, Roger
Emerson, and Ed Lojeski and set for SATB choir. She obtained most of the literature she used with the ensemble through the shared Boise School District Choral Music Library located at Boise High School. Gilk was able to contribute to the library each year, as each choral employee of the district was allowed to order a few new selections for performance during that year. At the end of the school year, these new selections were catalogued and added to the shared library. When selecting arrangements, Gilk chose songs she grew up listening to or selected pieces by the arrangers she preferred.163
163 Catherine Gilk, online questionnaire by author, November 28, 2016 .
135 Gilk recalls that in the late 1970s, literature being performed by the junior high school specialty ensembles in the Boise School District was heavily pop oriented. Alfie, The
Love Boat Theme, Where is the Love, and Sweet Georgia Brown were some of the song titles she recalls performing with her swing choir (see fig. 6.10). Gilk recalled that the ensemble sang Sweet Georgia Brown during her first year of teaching at her first Boise School District
Junior High School Large Group Festival. She was so nervous that she set the tempo too fast and her students, “literally had the deer-in-the-headlights look in their eyes.” Of Gilk and her work, former colleague Sue Hough-Block (West Junior High School) remarked, “she did a lot of popular pieces that she played around with. I was always impressed with her creativity.”164
Gilk describes the sound of early vocal jazz ensembles from the Boise Valley as very brassy and resonant and she thinks the vocal jazz educators in the Boise Valley were simply following the emerging trends in instrumental jazz and copying the big band sound. She also recalled that groups from Boise were usually accompanied by, “kick ass student rhythm sections!” When first working on a new vocal jazz chart, Gilk had her rhythm players listen to the choir sing through the arrangement while they followed along in their parts making notes about what they heard. She felt that this gave the players a good idea of where they could play out or hold back in their accompanying. With her drummers, Gilk was specific about what part of the drum-kit to play fills or accents on (i.e., ride cymbal, tom, snare, etc.) in the arrangements she directed. Gilk appreciated teaching in the Boise
Valley, saying, “it was great to have so many wonderful high school groups who were very influential in my learning.” She left Fairmont Junior High School in the spring of 1980 to
164 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 14, 2016.
136 pursue musical opportunities outside of the classroom. Linda Schmidt succeeded Gilk at
Fairmont Junior High School in the fall of 1980. 165
Fig. 6.10. The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1980 - Cathy Gilk, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
165 Catherine Gilk, online questionnaire by author, November 28, 2016.
137 CHAPTER SEVEN
MOUNTAIN HOME AND BORAH SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – LONNIE CLINE AND GLEN
GRANT, DIRECTORS
Fig. 7.1. Lonnie Cline - photo courtesy of the subject.
Lonnie Cline – Malcolm Mentorship and Listening
Lonnie Cline left Meridian High School in the spring of 1977 to study choral conducting on a graduate fellowship at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The university was fairly close to Portland, OR where Cline’s mentor, Hal Malcolm, lived and he began traveling to Portland on a regular basis to spend time with Malcolm and receive his “real jazz education.” Malcolm believed that in order to feel, understand, and teach jazz you had
138 to listen to it. Malcolm began by suggesting Count Basie and his Big Band because, “nobody swung harder than Basie.” For learning different jazz styles, Malcolm favored the big bands lead by Duke Ellington and Woody Herman and the vocal duo of Jackie and Roy (Jackie Cain
& Roy Krall). He preferred the solo jazz vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Blossom
Dearie, Sarah Vaughan, Eddie Jefferson, and Mark Murphy. He was highly influenced by the vocal jazz groups Mel Tormé and the Meltones, the Blue Notes of Paris, the Double Six of
Paris, and the trio of Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross. Malcolm felt strongly that vocalists should also listen to instrumentalists and his favorites were bassist Ray Brown, saxophonist John Coltrane, trumpeters Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, and pianists
Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, and Ray Brown.166
Lonnie Cline – Mountain Home High School and the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz
Ensemble / the Rhythm Section
In the fall of 1978, after a year of graduate studies at the University of Oregon
(1977/1978), Lonnie Cline returned to the Boise Valley to teach at his alma mater,
Mountain Home High School in Mountain Home, Idaho. The job opening at the high school was a “Godsend” for Cline as he had been unhappy at the University of Oregon. Mountain
Home is located 44 miles southeast of Boise and in the late 70s the population of the city was 7,540. Mountain Home was the only high school in the city with a student population of 734 students, far less than the 1,700 students who attended Meridian High School where he had previously taught. Many of Cline’s students resided on the Mountain Home Air Force
Base, which was located 12 miles southwest of the city. As the community of Mountain
Home was much smaller than the Boise metropolitan area, there were not as many
166 Lonnie Cline, Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016.
139 activities for students to become involved in and the focus and dedication Cline received from his students at the high school was like nowhere else that he had taught.167
His first year in the Mountain Home District, Cline taught four choirs at the high school, along with a band at one of the grade schools in the district. The four choirs at the high school were: an a cappella choir, a treble choir, a concert choir, and the vocal jazz ensemble, which Cline named the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble. Cline maintained the same audition process, standing formations, outfits, and amplification, he used at
Meridian High School with the Mountain Home High School ensemble. The number of vocalists Cline selected for membership in the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble was generally larger than he had at Meridian, between 24 and 40 students Due to the group’s size, students had to rotate in and out of performances at competitive vocal jazz festivals, as only 24 vocalists could perform on competition stages.168
Cline used a standard jazz trio (piano, bass, and drums) with occasional additions
(guitar, trumpet, saxophone, brass section, saxophone section, etc.) depending on what the arrangements required and who, at Mountain Home High School, “was begging to play in the ensemble.” Throughout his career in the Boise Valley, Cline spent a lot of time rehearsing, teaching, and developing, the student rhythm sections that accompanied his vocal jazz ensembles. His high school trios rehearsed before school, after school, and at lunch. When building a rhythm trio, Cline’s first priority was selecting the bass player as they serve as the central timekeeper along with the drummer. Cline recruited many of his bass players from the instrumental department at the institutions where he was teaching
167 Lonnie Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016. 168 Mountain Home High School Yearbook, Child For a Day…., 1979, Mountain Home, Idaho, 146.
140 and he often “converted” guitar players into bass players during his early years of teaching vocal jazz ensembles.169
If Cline could not find a pianist that was capable of accompanying his vocal jazz ensemble on their own, he used two piano players, one to play the bottom part and the other to play the top part. As many of Cline’s early piano players had classical training, he recalls having to threaten them, saying he would tie their feet to the piano bench if they used any of the pedals. The sustain pedal was a particular problem, as it’s effect is not conducive to the jazz idiom. Cline taught his drummers (see fig. 7.2) how to alter textures
(e.g., by switching from sticks to brushes, using mallets during power ballads, or altering between a closed or open hi-hat) on the drum-kit in order to create shape in an arrangement. He also limited the parts of the drum kit his drummers could use (snare, hi- hat, ride cymbal, etc.), so that the drums did not overpower the choir.170
Cline always tried to make his rhythm section feel special and important, as he believed they were the backbone of his vocal jazz ensembles. One of the ways he accomplished this was by featuring them at concerts. Often, Cline would open vocal jazz ensemble concerts by having the rhythm section play a couple of tunes, as a trio, before bringing the vocalists on stage. Throughout his career, Cline made listening tapes which included recordings of outstanding professional jazz trios (e.g., The Ray Brown trio, Bill
Evans, Art Tatum, & Miles Davis) for his rhythm section players to listen to, analyze, and emulate. Cline used these tapes to guide his players through the listening process, by telling them what to listen for in the recordings (e.g., dynamics, phrase shaping, texture changes,
169 Lonnie Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016. 170 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa 75, 1975, 82.
141 etc.). He would also have his combo members compare and contrast different cuts of the same tune, interpreted by different jazz artists, as well as study the progression of a jazz artist after listening to, and comparing, recordings made throughout their career.171
Fig. 7.2. The drummer for the Meridian High School New Dimensions (1975 - Lonnie Cline, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Lonnie Cline – Vocal Jazz Literature
While working on his master’s degree at the University of Oregon, part of Cline’s fellowship duties included directing two vocal jazz ensembles at the university. As he was new to collegiate teaching and not always sure what to do with the ensembles, he recalls, “I just hammered them with more charts, more charts, more charts.” Although there were several companies publishing vocal jazz charts in the late 70s (Creative World, Hal
Leonard, Alfred, Kysar, Scott, etc.), the selection of literature for vocal jazz ensembles was still limited. Cline, who was never bashful about “picking the brains of vocal jazz experts
171 Lonnie Cline, Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016.
142 over the years,” consulted with vocal jazz pioneers Hal Malcolm (see fig. 7.4) and Waldo
King regarding repertoire suggestions and arrangements to perform with his vocal jazz ensembles at the University of Oregon.172
Dave Barduhn (see figs. 7.3 & 7.4) was the arranger of many of the vocal jazz charts that King and Malcolm either suggested or provided to Lonnie Cline while he was at the
University of Oregon. Barduhn and Cline met while Barduhn was playing piano and arranging for Hal Malcolm and the Mt. Hood Community College Vocal Jazz Ensemble in the early to mid 70s. According to Cline, he could tell by the way Barduhn arranged that “he had stuff figured out. ”He “needled” Barduhn for ideas on vocal jazz ensemble singing throughout and following his tenure at Meridian High and Mountain Home High Schools.
Cline proudly admits that in the late 1970s and 1980s, he performed Dave Barduhn arrangements almost exclusively with the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble.173
Fig. 7.3. Dave Barduhn with his mentor Stan Kenton - photo courtesy of the subject.
172 Dave Barduhn, oral interview by author, Pasco Washington, April 22, 2017. 173 Mountain Home High School Spring Concert, Program, Mountain Home, Idaho, May 30, 1980.
143
Fig. 7.4. Cline’s mentors Hal Malcolm (left) and Dave Barduhn (right) - photo courtesy of the subject.
When selecting vocal jazz repertoire for the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble to perform, Cline picked arrangements in different tempos, keys, styles, and rhythmic feels. He typically started every year with a ballad, in order to work on the choral sound, a swing tune, to teach the concept of swing, and a blues tune, in order to teach vocal improvisation.
At competitive vocal jazz festivals, Cline always tried to program one arrangement that featured only the vocal ensemble, usually an a cappella ballad, along with arrangements that (a) featured the rhythm section in some fashion, and (b) featured soloists in a variety of forms (feature lyrical, incidental, & vocal improvisation solos).174
When teaching vocal improvisation to his students in the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz
Ensemble it was “all about listening,” according to Cline. In order to get the sounds of jazz improvisation in his students’ ears and heads, Cline played recordings of outstanding jazz
174 Lonnie Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016.
144 improvisation artists for them on a regular basis. When practicing vocal improvisation, he encouraged his student’s use space (silence) in their scats, had them imitate/echo his scatting licks, played call and response games (I sing/you sing – question/answer), and gave students an emotion to portray, or had them act out stories through their scats.175
Cline felt like syllable choices, in vocal jazz scatting, were a hang up for his students, and he helped them all develop a syllabic vocabulary. He achieved this by having the students go home and write out their own syllabic progressions to rhythmic patterns commonly found in jazz. He also limited the rhythmic and syllabic choices his scatters could use in their solos, by only allowing them to use certain rhythmic patterns (e.g., only use quarter notes, only use triplets, etc.) or syllables (e.g., only use doo and bah, only use shoo, etc.) during improvisation practice. According to Cline, once limitations were lifted “the creativity flows like you just can’t believe. To have limits put onto you eventually makes you a great soloist.”176
Lonnie Cline – Vocal Jazz Festivals and Why Vocal Jazz Ensemble Singing Flourished
in the Boise Valley
During Cline’s tenure at Mountain Home High School (1979-1981), the Sight and
Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble participated in the University of Idaho Jazz Festival; the
Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival; the Reno International Jazz Festival; and the
Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival. During the late 1980s, the ensemble was a fixture in the evening sing-off’s and often won first place in the AA (medium sized school population) division at all four events. At the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival, Cline and the Sight and
Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble often competed against Doug Anderson and his group from
175 Lonnie Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016 176 Ibid.
145 McMinville High School in McMinville, OR (see fig. 7.5). Every year, despite the impending competition between the two vocal jazz ensembles, they would do an exchange concert the day before the festival. At the conclusion of the exchange concert, he and Anderson would critique each other and offer advice for the next day’s festival. “We never had a blood thirsty competition and both of our groups just got better and better,” recalls Cline.177
Fig. 7.5. Doug Anderson and the McMinnville High School “Twighlighters” - photo courtesy of the subject..
As Cline and the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble were consistent finalists at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival, he ran many successful rehearsals in between the day preliminary competition and the evening finals competition at the event. “I could get more taught in 10 minutes with those kids, than an entire hour-long rehearsal. Their focus was so strong, because they knew they had made the finals. They were really great before those
177 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May, 17, 1980.
146 rehearsals, but now they’re world killing.” At one of their last evening sing-off performances at the festival, the Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble performed Hal
Malcolm’s arrangement of the Jackson Five tune Never Can Say Goodbye, featuring ensemble member Shelly Henderson. She brought the audience to their feet that night and won the award for outstanding soloist of the festival. Cline emphasized ”This was huge as there were 130 groups competing.”178
During Cline’s last year at Mountain Home High School, he and the Sight and Sound
Vocal Jazz Ensemble (see fig. 7.6) traveled to Fullerton, CA to participate in the Fullerton
College Jazz Festival. Cline decided to attend the festival after meeting Brent Pierce, the festival’s director, while he was assisting with the first MENC All-Northwest Convention
Honor Jazz Choir, which Pierce directed in 1979. The jazz festival at Fullerton College was an open festival. Ensembles were placed in one of two divisions regardless of the size of their school: show choirs or vocal jazz choir/ensembles. The evening sing-off featured the top ensembles from both the vocal jazz and show choir divisions singing back-to-back
(show choir/jazz choir/show choir/jazz choir). The show choirs sang on the main stage during the sing-off while the vocal jazz ensembles sang on a platform that was raised from the orchestra pit to the stage with the entire vocal jazz ensemble on it. Cline remembers following a show choir in the finals saying, “I counted the tune off as we were being raised and we literally came out of the basement ‘swingin’ and won the whole thing.”179
178 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 19, 1979. 179 MENC, “Northwest Division Conference at Billings,” Music Educators Journal 65, no. 4 (Dec, 1978): 65.
147
Fig. 7.6. The Mountain Home High School Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble (1979 - Lonnie Cline, director). The second vocal jazz ensemble from the Boise Valley to be recognized as a “guest choral ensemble” in the NAJE Educator Journal - photo courtesy of the subject.
Cline thinks that educational vocal jazz ensemble singing started and flourished in the Boise area, “because people were open and willing to try it in the valley.” Cline also believes that he, Jerry Vevig, and Vern Swain all shared the same understanding, “that you are really short changing your students if the only thing they are singing is madrigals, Bach,
Haydn, Beethoven, etc.. Even though those are awesome roots to have, the students don’t know anything about non-traditional harmonies and rhythms. You don’t get that unless you start experiencing things like jazz and pop music.” Cline had served as choral director at
Mountain Home High School for 3 years (1978/1979 – 1980/1981) when he left to teach at
Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, OR in the spring of 1981. In 1979, a year after Cline began teaching at his alma mater, Mountain Home High School, Glen Grant (see fig. 7.7) began a 13-year tenure at Borah High School180
180 Lonnie Cline, Cline, oral interview by author, Beaverton, Oregon, December 27, 2016.
148
Fig. 7.7. Glen Grant - photo courtesy of the subject.
Glen Grant – Early Biography
Glen Grant was born on February 6, 1950 in Pocatello, ID. Grant’s first instrument was the ukulele, which he started playing at the age of three, around the time his family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. Grant attended public school from kindergarten through the
6th grade in Salt Lake City. His father was a singer, whose mission assignment for the
Mormon Church had been to sing in a male quartet, which often performed Barbershop- style music. Because of this experience, Grant’s father encouraged his family to sing and perform together providing Grant with the opportunity to learn to sing harmony parts at
149 an early age. His uncle gave him a guitar when he was eight and he learned everything about playing it on his own through the “school of hard knocks.“181
Two years after receiving his first guitar, Grant’s family moved back to Pocatello, ID where he attended Irving Junior High School and Pocatello High School for his 7th through
11th-grade school years. Grant taught private guitar lessons and played in a Rock & Roll
Band while in Pocatello but never participated in school music groups. He regrets that he never participated in school choir at Pocatello High School because, “they were really good.” The summer before his senior year, the Grant family moved from Pocatello to Boise,
Idaho where he experienced his first year in school choir at Borah High School in 1968. The choral director at Borah High School at that time was Dale Ball. Grant found him to be
“highly inspirational” and his example led Grant to choose music education as a profession.
While at Borah High School, Grant also participated in a small quartet that sang arrangements of folksongs called Marmalade Mode.182
Grant graduated from Borah High School in the spring of 1968 and enrolled at Boise
State University in the fall of the same year. He attended Boise State University through the spring of 1970, when he took a leave of absence to serve a 2-year mission for his church.
Like his father before him, Grant’s mission assignment was to sing in a vocal ensemble, which he greatly appreciated. Grant returned to Boise State University in the fall of 1972 to continue his music education studies. While at the university, he studied voice with William
Taylor and choral music with Dr. Wilbur D. Elliott. He graduated from Boise State
181 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016. 182 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari Volume 10, 1968, Boise, Idaho, 98 & 117.
150 University in the spring of 1976 with a Bachelor’s in music education degree (vocal emphasis).183
Grant accepted his first teaching contract in the fall of the same year (1976) with the
Boise Public Schools. He succeeded Jerry Sanford at Hillside Junior High School and it was the first time Grant was exposed to vocal jazz education. He recalled that the Swing Choir sang simple tunes like April In Paris during his year at the school. In the fall of 1977, Grant left Hillside Junior High School to pursue a master’s degree in voice at the University of
Utah in Salt Lake City. While at the university he sang in a few operas before graduating in the spring of 1979 with an MA degree in Voice. 184
Glenn Grant – Borah High School and the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble
Grant had no training in vocal jazz singing prior to his teaching and was “baptized into vocal jazz,” after being hired at Borah High School in the summer of 1979. He recalls that the school had a tradition of singing the style, and he did not mind doing it as he had a background in the guitar. Grant succeeded Sam Thompson at Borah High School in the fall of 1979. Thompson, a world-renowned operatic tenor, had replaced Vern Swain during the
1978/1979 school year. When Grant arrived at Borah High School, the choral program consisted of four ensembles: a large mixed a cappella choir of 60 to 80 junior and senior voices; a sophomore concert choir of about 40 mixed voices; a junior and senior women’s group of 40 voices; and Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble, the group founded by
183 Department of Music, Boise State University, "Boise State University Meistersingers on Tour (UP 615)" (1974). Department of Music Programs (UP 615). 351. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/music_programs/351 184 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016.
151 Swain in 1973. In addition to his choral classes, Grant also taught a theory class every year
(1979-1992).185
During Grant’s tenure at Borah High School, the Contemporary Directions Vocal
Ensemble included between 24 and 30 vocalists (see fig. 7.8) who stood on two sets of three step choral risers in various formations during performances. The ensemble participated in the Fall, Christmas, and Spring, choral concerts hosted by the choral department; the students performed in the Boise community at business parties and events, throughout the school year particularly during the Christmas season; and participated in two or three vocal jazz festivals held during the spring semester. The
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble wore outfits, which were selected by a student committee. The ensemble was amplified during concerts using two overhead/boom microphones for the choir and two “Sure 58” dynamic microphones for the soloists. 186
When selecting students for the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble, Grant looked for singers who were capable of changing their sound. He felt that students with an
“elastic” quality to their voice fit well in a vocal jazz-type ensemble. Grant’s audition process for the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble consisted of a few simple sight- reading exercises and a series of pitch holding exercises. He paid particular attention to the pitch accuracy of his bass auditionees as they were small in number but crucial to the success of the ensemble.187
185 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari – All That Jazz 81, 1981, Boise, Idaho, 134 & 135. 186 Ibid,135. 187 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016.
152
Fig. 7.8. The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1981 - Glen Grant, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Glen Grant – Vocal Jazz Education and Festivals
Immediately after accepting the job at Borah High School, Grant bought a few jazz fake books and learned standard vocal jazz repertoire in order to become more acquainted with the genre. He also began listening to jazz on a regular basis in order to more fully understand the art-form. Grant listened to several professional vocal jazz ensembles including the Singers Unlimited, the Hi-Lo’s, the Manhattan Transfer; and he loved the three-part harmony group Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross. Other than professional vocal jazz ensembles, Grant was influenced by jazz vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Mark Murphy, the big bands of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Woody Herman, and instrumental jazz soloists Joe Pass, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Wayne Shorter, Kenny
Burrell, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Nate Adderley, Charlie Christian, Jaco Pastorius,
153 Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk, George Shearing, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Pat Metheney, and many others.188
Boise Valley educators Jerry Vevig, Lonnie Cline, and Vern Swain, influenced Grant early on in his career at Borah High School. As they were in the same school district and participating in the same festivals/events, Vevig and the Capital Singers provided Grant with examples of vocal jazz literature, presentation, and sound. At vocal jazz festivals, Grant required that the members of the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble listen to Cline’s group from Mountain Home High School as their vocal jazz interpretations were unique and Cline was kind of a “wild man.” Grant was also well aware of the vocal jazz tradition
Swain had created at Borah High School as his younger sister had sung for Swain in the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble. Grant recalled that Swain’s vocal jazz ensembles at Borah High School sounded “amazing,” and he believes that Swain was a “real pioneer” in vocal jazz singing in the Boise Valley.189
Grant took the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble to the University of Idaho
Jazz Festival several times during his time at Borah High School (see fig. 7.9). According to
Glen, “I attended because I felt I had to, because it was local.” He remembers that the ensemble usually placed in the AAAA (largest school population) division when they attended and he felt that the festival’s biggest attribute was the performances by professional jazz artists like George Shearing and Ella Fitzgerald which occurred during the evening hours in the Kibbie Dome at the university. The Contemporary Directions Vocal
188 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016. 189 Northwest Swing Choir Festival, Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 22, 1982.
154 Ensemble also attended the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival on a regular basis under Grant’s leadership. He looked up to the festival’s director, Byron Gjerde, and thought that while the festival was a “high pressure” event it was well run.” Grant only took the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble to the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival once while he was at Borah High School. He shared that he “was intimidated” by the competitive event and did not attend often because he didn’t want his students to leave any event/festival feeling like they had lost. Grant compared the festival at Mt. Hood to playing in the World Series.190
Fig. 7.9. The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1982 - Glen Grant director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject.
190 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 22, 1982.
155 Grant preferred taking his ensemble to non-competitive festivals. They consistently had great experiences at the Edmonds Community College Soundsation Vocal Jazz Festival in Lynnwood, WA (see fig. 7.10). Frank Demiero founded the festival in 1974 and each year he ran the event along with his students from the Soundsation Jazz Choir. Grant valued the fact that the festival’s adjudicators were always positive while providing their critiques to the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble and similar to what he appreciated about the
University of Idaho Jazz Festival, he “loved” the professional vocal jazz artists and ensembles that would perform at the festival such as Mark Murphy and the Hi-Lo’s.191
Fig. 7.10. The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1983 – Glen Grant, director) at the Edmonds Community College Soundsation Vocal Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject.
191 Eva Mae Pisciotta, “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States” (DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992), 111 & 112, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. .
156 Grant also recalls participating in the Treasure Valley Community College Vocal Jazz
Festival run by Bruce Walker with the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble in the late
80s. During their performance, he thinned his drummer’s set and only allowed him to play the hi-hat and snare drum for the competition. The judges were quite impressed with this approach to drumming with a vocal ensemble, according to Grant. From its inception in the early 80s, the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble also made annual appearances at the District III/Boise State University Vocal Jazz Festival. Grant recalls that the local event attracted all of the Boise area junior and senior high school vocal jazz ensembles.192
According to Grant, he took his groups to vocal jazz festivals, “to get the kids hooked into possibilities by listening to groups.” While attending festivals, he required the students in his ensemble to attend all of the other participating groups’ performances. He felt that vocal jazz festivals made an impact on vocal jazz education through the excitement that the professional artists who performed at the festivals created in the student participants. He recalls that, after attending a vocal jazz festival, the kids would come back “highly jacked, and you could feel the excitement the festivals created at the start of the next school year.”
Grant also felt that participation in vocal jazz festivals was integral in his development as a teacher of vocal jazz ensembles.193
Glen Grant – Vocal Jazz Literature
One of the aspects Grant appreciated most about attending vocal jazz festivals was the ability to hear, and often times acquire, new vocal jazz literature to perform with his ensemble. If Grant heard a tune he liked during performances, he would approach the
192 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author. Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016. 193 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016.
157 group’s director following their presentation and ask them where they acquired the chart.
According to Grant, more often than not the director would hand him a copy of the chart as
“everyone was in the business of building vocal jazz programs in the high schools at these events.” When selecting vocal jazz literature for the Borah High School Contemporary
Directions Vocal Ensemble to perform, Grant picked tunes that he liked and was passionate about. The group was capable of singing up to eight vocal parts (SI, SII, AI, AII, TenI, Ten II,
Bar, Bass) so the vocal scoring in the arrangements they used varied. When programming arrangements for vocal jazz sets, Grant typically included a medium tempo swing tune, a ballad, and an up-tempo number.194
Grant recalls that the most popular vocal jazz arrangers used by the early directors of vocal jazz ensembles in the Boise Valley were: Dave Barduhn, Kirby Shaw, and David
Cazier. While teaching at Borah High School, Grant and his ensemble performed many unpublished and hand scripted arrangements by Dave Barduhn. He commented on how hard the charts were to read saying, “the manuscript looked like a chicken had scratched it.” Grant and the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble also performed many published arrangements by the Gene Aitken-run University of Northern Colorado Jazz Press
(see fig. 7.11) during his tenure at Borah High School.195
194 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016. 195 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
158
Fig. 7.11. An advertisement for the University of Northern Colorado Jazz Press - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
Although Grant found arrangements by Kirby Shaw to be “highly sing-able,” he did not perform many of them as he found them to be more contrived and creatively limiting than the unpublished charts by Dave Barduhn and Dave Cazier. Throughout the 70s and
80s, Grant had a musician from California, named John Ward, “lift” arrangements of recordings by the Singers Unlimited and the Manhattan Transfer for the Contemporary
Directions Vocal Ensemble to perform. According to Grant, “there must be at least 30 tunes from John in the Borah High School choral library.” Grant recalls using repetition of notes, rhythms, and parts, when first teaching a vocal jazz chart to the ensemble and he encouraged members of Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble to listen for harmonic
“tensions and releases” in the arrangements. Grant was not fond of vocal improvisation and did not spend time teaching it. Instead, he either chose literature that did not feature scatting sections or he had students in the rhythm section (the Squids) cover
159 improvisational sections.196
Glen Grant – Rhythm Section
When it came to directing vocal jazz ensembles, working with the rhythm section was Grant’s self-admitted, “real passion.” The rhythm section for the Contemporary
Directions Vocal Ensemble always included piano, bass, drums, guitar, and occasionally a saxophone. Grant named the jazz combo the Squids early on in his tenure at Borah High
School, a name they still maintain today. The Squids had their own rehearsal room adjacent to the choir room where they spent most of each daily rehearsal practicing to solidify their parts and gel as an ensemble while Grant worked with the vocalists in the choir room.
Grant kept the vocalists and trio separate until the singers had learned all of their notes because he felt it was an overload of musical information for the students. It was his belief that the two units (choir & combo) needed to understand their musical material separately before they could understand how they fit together as an overall ensemble.197
Grant taught his piano players in the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble to play three-note chord voicings while comping with the choir. Recordings he had heard of the professional vocal jazz ensemble, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross inspired these voicings.
During his tenure at Borah High School (1979-1992), Grant recalls that many of the Squids were studying their instruments (see fig. 7.12) privately with outstanding teachers in the
Boise area and he believes this increased the level of the Squids play with the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble. Many members of the Squids went on to work professionally in the music industry, including pianists: Paul Tilotson, Deidre Rodman, Jeff
196 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016. 197 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari – All That Jazz 81, 1981, Boise, Idaho, 134 & 135.
160 Thompson, and Jennifer Campbell, as well as bassist Keb Bate. Grant left Borah High School in the spring of 1992 to teach at Taft Elementary School in the Boise Public School
District. He served Borah High School and directed the Contemporary Directions Vocal
Ensemble for 13 years and was succeeded at the school by Ted Totorica, his former student at Borah High School.198
Fig. 7.12. The drummer for the 1989 “Squids” - photo courtesy of the subject.
198 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 89 – The Edge, 1989, Boise, Idaho, 57.
161 CHAPTER EIGHT
CAPITAL SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL – JERRY VEVIG AND LINDA SCHMIDT, DIRECTORS
Fig. 8.1. Jerry Vevig - photo courtesy of the subject.
Jerry Vevig – Vocal Jazz Arrangements and Rhythm Section
After several years of competing in vocal jazz festivals with the Capital Singers, Jerry
Vevig noticed that the ensembles who were winning performed unique, unpublished, and/or new vocal jazz literature. He learned that in order to be unique, many high school vocal jazz ensemble directors commissioned arrangements from up and coming arrangers specifically for their ensembles to perform at festivals. In the mid 70s, Vevig approached
162 Dave Barduhn about arranging In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning for the Capital
Singers. The song was the theme song for the television program The Tomorrow Show and five trombones performed it. Vevig requested that Barduhn set the arrangement in a similar fashion. When Vevig received the arrangement he immediately had his piano player play through it. On the initial hearing, Vevig thought that the arrangement did not sound singable and he set it aside until he heard a recording of John Moawad’s Central
Washington University Vocal Jazz Ensemble performing it at the 1978 NAJE National
Association of Jazz Educators (NAJE) Convention, in Dallas, TX.199
Vevig programmed the chart for the 1979 Capital Singers, his first vocal jazz ensemble to win at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival (See figure 8.3). According to Vevig, the issue with many published arrangements was that everyone was performing them. He had made the mistake of performing Phil Mattson’s adaptation of the Manhattan Transfer tune Birdland published by Hal Leonard, a full year after it had been released (see fig. 8.2).
Although his ensemble sang it well, it had been performed so much the prior year that nobody wanted to hear it, recalls Vevig; and he learned that “with published charts you can get in trouble pretty fast, you’re pretty safe if you do stuff that you can get yourself from an arranger.”200
199 Dave Barduhn, oral interview by author, Pasco, Washington, April 22, 2017. 200 Capital Singers, In The Wee Small Hours Hours of the Morning, 1979, Don Cerderstrom Custom Recording, LP.
163
Fig. 8.2. The Capital Singers (1981- Jerry Vevig, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho - photo courtesy of the subject
Fig. 8.3. The Capital Singers (1979 - Jerry Vevig, Director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
164 Over the years, Vevig also noticed that a good rhythm section was a key ingredient to placing and winning at vocal jazz festivals held in the northwestern United States. Of their initial win at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival Vevig recalls, “We were nearly always in the top three, but I never could quite win that thing until 1979 when I had a fantastic rhythm section.” The rhythm section was so outstanding that they accompanied the first
MENC All-Northwest Vocal Jazz Ensemble, directed by Brent Pierce and held in Billings,
Montana in 1979.201
When working with the rhythm section (see fig. 8.4), Vevig encouraged each member to listen to great professional jazz players and study privately on their instruments. Throughout his tenure at Capital High School, Vevig felt fortunate that most of his students’ private teachers were okay with working on ‘Capital Singers’ charts with the students as this greatly aided in the overall ensemble product achieved by the ensemble.
Vevig remembers consistently integrating the vocalists and rhythm section of the Capital
Singers throughout the rehearsal process. If the ensemble was learning a new swing style arrangement, he would have the drummer play swing triplets on one part of the kit (snare, ride cymbal, etc.) and keep beats two and four with the hi-hat, throughout the entirety of the rehearsal. He did this in order to develop a consistent sense of “swing” in the ensembles interpretation. Vevig also integrated the rhythm section with the vocalists on the performance stage by having them sing on the a cappella ballads at performances and festivals.202
201 MENC, “Northwest Division Conference at Billings,” Music Educators Journal 65, no. 4 (Dec, 1978): 65. 202 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
165
Fig. 8.4. The Capital Singers Combo (1979 – Jerry Vevig, director) - photos courtesy of the subject.
166 Jerry Vevig – Listening Influences / Vocal Improvisation / the Capital Singers Tone
Quality / Feature Tunes
Lonnie Cline’s vocal jazz ensembles at Meridian and Mountain Home High Schools were quicker to implement vocal improvisation/scat singing, similar to the groups from west of the Cascade mountains (Portland & Seattle), into their performance sets at vocal jazz festivals. According to Vevig, “they did a lot more vocal improvisation than my groups.
I didn’t dig into improv until I realized you needed to do it to win (Laughs).” Throughout his vocal jazz teaching career, Vevig listened to professional jazz vocalists Sarah Vaughan and Mel Tormé; as well as the professional vocal jazz ensembles the Modernaires; the Hi-
Lo’s; the Pied Pipers; the Double Six of Paris; the Manhattan Transfer; and the Singers
Unlimited. Vevig, listened to these groups and artists in order to learn jazz style and he played them for his students in the Capital Singers in order to help them learn how to scat.
He felt that Mel Tormé was the best example of a scatter to play for students, because what he did made sense. It was rhythmically “right on the money” and it worked both vocally and harmonically.203
During his era, Vevig recalled that most of the students who sang scat solos were
“naturals” at scatting. “They could listen a bit and run with it.” He also felt that many high schools and colleges were producing recordings containing examples of excellent vocal improvisation and he played their recordings for his students. Hal Malcolm’s Vocal Jazz
Ensemble at Mt. Hood Community College, Fank Demiero’s Soundsation from Edmonds
Community College, and Waldo King’s Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Roosevelt High School
203 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
167 were a few of the specific ensembles he remembers playing for the Capital Singers, to aide in their vocal improvisations.204
Vevig was grateful that all of the students in his ensemble were dually enrolled in the a cappella choir at Capital High School, as he felt it allowed him to build solid vocal technique in each student. Vevig started each rehearsal with a lengthy vocal warm-up and, while working on a cappella ballads, he had the vocalists modify every vowel in the song to an “ooo,” as he felt like it lead to an excellent vocal blend. Many adjudicators at vocal jazz ensemble festivals in the northwest region thought that the vocal timbre of the Capital
Singers was too dark for the vocal jazz idiom. But, Vevig, felt that the tone was placed right square in the center of the vocal mask and that the sound his ensemble was producing was healthy. Vevig recalls that he and Byron Gjerde, founder of the vocal jazz portion of the
Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival, would often discuss the tone placement he used with the Capital Singers. He specifically remembers saying to Gjerde, “It’s not dark, it’s not down, it’s right square in the mask,” when explaining the placement of his groups sound.205
Throughout his participation in the vocal jazz festivals scene, Vevig questioned why so many of the winning ensembles and directors were performing arrangements featuring their soloists rather than the choir (see fig. 8.5). Of the early Capital Singers he remembers,
“we were trying to be an ensemble not a soloist and a back-up group.” Over the years, after watching groups with outstanding soloists take top honors at festivals, he changed his
204 Creative World Music Publications. “Music For Vocal Jazz Ensemble.” Advertisement. National Association of Jazz Educators Journal, Vol. VI no. 4 (February 1974), 45. 205 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016.
168 mind. He recalls, “I didn’t feel good about it. It’s just that if you’re going to win, you need to play the game, and I just got to the point that I wanted to win.”206
Fig. 8.5. Jerry Vevig works with the 1978 Capital Singers on the feature tune Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone arranged by Dave Barduhn - photo courtesy of the subject.
Vevig’s last year at Capital High School (1982/1983), future professional jazz vocalist Curtis Stigers sang in the Capital Singers. That year for the finals at the Northwest
Vocal Jazz Festival, Vevig programmed Dave Barduhn’s arrangements of Everything Must
Change and Route 66, both of which featured Stigers. One of the rules for the finals/playoffs was that each ensemble had a 10-minute time limit on the performance stage. Before they walked on stage to perform that night, Vevig and the Capital Singers (see fig. 8.6) knew they would be disqualified for going overtime as their vocal set was well over 10 minutes long.
Vevig recalls, “I informed Dave Barduhn, who was helping run the festival, about the situation beforehand and he went to the judges table and told the adjudicators to ignore
206 Capital Singers, Over The Rainbow, 1978, Don Cederstrom Custom Recording, LP. .
169 the time limit rule.” Vevig and the Capital Singers won that night at the Northwest Vocal
Jazz Festival and Curtis Stigers, who brought the audience to their feet multiple times, was named the outstanding soloists of the Festival. In Vevig’s final year at Capital High School, the ensemble also competed in the AAAA (largest school population) division at the
University of Idaho Jazz Festival, the Columbia Basin College Jazz Festival, and the Nyssa
Vocal Jazz Festival, and won first place in all three.207
Fig. 8.6 . The Capital Singers (1983 - Jerry Vevig, director). Curtis Stigers is front and center holding a clarinet - photo courtesy of the subject.
Jerry Vevig left Capital High School in the spring of 1983 after 16 years of service
(1967/1968 – 1982/1983) to become the Superintendent of Music for the Boise Public
Schools. Vevig’s immediate successor at Capital High School was Royce Mitchell, his former
207 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 21, 1983.
170 student teacher and a graduate of Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, ID. Before teaching at Capital High School, Mitchell taught band, orchestra, and choir, at Homedale
High School for 2 years. Mitchell had been at Capital High School for one school year
(1983/1984) when he moved to Portland, OR to become the Director of Music at First
Nazarene Church. In the fall of 1984, Linda Schmidt (see fig. 8.7) moved from Fairmont
Junior High School to begin her tenure at Capital High School, replacing Mitchell. 208
Fig. 8.7. Linda Schmidt - photo courtesy of the subject.
208 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 14, 2016.
171 Linda Schmidt – Early Biography/ Academic Studies / Early Teaching Career
Linda Elliott Schmidt was born on September 13, 1951 in American Falls, ID and raised in the city of Aberdeen. She grew up in a musical family who often sang together for entertainment and she began piano lessons in the 1st grade while attending Aberdeen
Elementary School (1956-62). Schmidt had her earliest choral experiences singing in the junior choir at her church, a group she also directed when she was in high school. She began studying private voice at Idaho State University in Pocatello, ID while attending
Aberdeen High School (1965-1969), where she played the flute in the band, accompanied, and sang, in all of the choirs. Schmidt’s inspiration to teach music came from Bill Herr, the music teacher at Aberdeen High School. Of Herr, she recalls, “he recognized talent and didn’t mess around.” Schmidt also formed a trio while in high school and they performed often in the Aberdeen community. She traveled to Boise for the first time with the trio to sing for a Chamber of Commerce Convention and said of the group, “we accompanied ourselves with ukeleles and sang folk music and I taught myself to play the guitar
(giggles/laughs).” Schmidt graduated from Aberdeen High School in the spring of 1969 and enrolled at Boise State University in the fall of the same year.209
While at Boise State University, Schmidt sang alongside Glen Grant in the school’s top choral ensemble, the Meistersingers, under the direction of Dr. Wilbur D. Elliott.
Schmidt graduated from Boise State University in the spring of 1973 with a Bachelor of
Music degree and from 1973 through 1978, she taught in Twin Falls, ID, Klamath Falls, OR, and Blackfoot, ID, before teaching at Kuna High School for Joint School District 3 (The Kuna
School District) in the Boise Valley for the 1979/1980 school year. It was while teaching at
209 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
172 Kuna High School that Schmidt first became involved with vocal jazz ensemble singing.
When hired by the district, she did not know that a vocal jazz ensemble was part of the curriculum. She discovered that she would be teaching a vocal jazz ensemble when she was presented with her teaching schedule, “which listed vocal jazz ensemble.” Schmidt recalls,
“I didn’t know anything about vocal jazz, but I liked it.”210
Schmidt grew up listening to big band music and standard tunes, sung by Frank
Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, with her parents so, many of the sounds of the jazz idiom were already in her ear. She had also directed a show choir, “I even did the choreography myself,” in Twin Falls, ID while she was student teaching and feels like this helped her crossover to jazz, as the music they sang was popular. In May of the 1979/1980 school year, Schmidt took the Kuna High School Jazz Choir to the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival at
Mt. Hood Community College. Schmidt recalls that she met the festival’s director, Hal
Malcolm, for the first time at the event and that the ensemble from Kuna High School “did well” in the A (smallest school size) division at the festival.211
In the summer of 1980, Schmidt left Joint School District Number 3 for the Boise
Public School District, when she took over for Cathy Gilk at Fairmont Junior High School.
Schmidt and the Fairmont Junior High Swing Choir (see fig. 8.8) regularly participated in the Boise State University/District III Vocal Jazz Festival, the Nyssa Vocal Jazz Festival, and the University of Idaho Vocal Jazz Festival, during her 4 years of service at the school
(1980/1981 – 1983/1984). The arrangements that she used with the Swing Choir were
210 Boise State College Department of Music, "Meistersingers Contemporary Chorale (UP 615)" (1972). Department of Music Programs (UP 615). 315. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/music_programs/315 211 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program, Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May, 17, 1980. .
173 usually published as, “I knew they would come to me intact and I could just teach the charts in a straight-ahead fashion as the rhythm parts were completely written out.” The arrangers Schmidt commonly used while teaching at Fairmont Junior High School were
Roger Emerson, Ed Lojeski, and Kirby Shaw.212
In the spring of 1984, the judges for the Boise District Junior High School Large Group
Festival (Sue Hough-Block, Bruce Walker, and Quinn VanPaepeghem) heard the swing choirs from both Fairmont (Linda Schmidt, Director) and East (Rob Newburn, Director)
Junior High Schools. “Both groups were so good,” recalls adjudicator Hough-Block. “There was a trophy for best swing choir to be decided upon, and it took us a half hour to decide who was the best. Eventually, East (Rob Newburn) was selected as the ‘outstanding swing ensemble’ because they were doing more ‘jazz’ literature.” Hough-Block believes that it was at this point, “that ‘jazz’ started to replace ‘pop/swing’ material as the emphasis with specialty ensembles, even at the junior high school level.” When Hough-Block informed
Schmidt of why her group from Fairmont Junior High School hadn’t been selected as the
‘outstanding swing ensemble,’ Schmidt told Hough-Block, “If I would have known the criteria, I would have programmed more jazz.” Schmidt would get her chance to program more jazz, sooner rather than later, as the next year she moved from Fairmont Junior High
School to Capital High School.213
212 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016. 213 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 14, 2016.
174
Figure 8.8. The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1983 – Linda Schmidt, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Linda Schmidt – Capital High School and the Capital Singers
Schmidt began her 22-year tenure (1984/1985 – 2005/2006) at Capital High School in the fall of 1984, after Royce Mitchell left the school for church music work in Portland,
OR. The choral program at Capital High School consisted of four curricular choirs: a large junior/senior mixed a cappella choir; a mixed sophomore concert choir of about 60 voices; a 30 voice junior/senior women’s ensemble, which performed both classical and jazz repertoire; and the Capital Singers (see fig. 8.9). In addition to the curricular choirs,
Schmidt ran an extra-curricular vocal jazz ensemble, which she called Eagle Jazz. The group, which rehearsed before school and at lunch, was initiated by Schmidt because she felt it was important for her younger students to experience the vocal jazz idiom. As when
Jerry Vevig was at Capital High School, students in the ensemble were dually enrolled in a
175 large classical ensemble (band, orchestra, or the a cappella Choir) and the Capital
Singers.214
Fig. 8.9. The Capital Singers (1985 - Linda Schmidt, director) performing at Capital High School - photo courtesy of the subject.
The Capital Singers participated in the Fall and Christmas Choral Concerts at
Capital High School, sang at 20 or more business parties during the holiday season, attended three or more vocal jazz festivals during the second semester, hosted a desert night fundraiser in April, and caped their year of with the Capital Singers Show each May.
For the first 10 years of Schmidt’s tenure at Capital High School, the group also took an annual trip to Disneyland over spring break, a tradition that had been started by Jerry
Vevig in the late 1970s. While performing, the Capital Singers stood in a mixed formation
214 Capital High School Yearbook, Talon 20th, 1985, Boise, Idaho, 60 & 61. .
176 on two or three sets of three-step choral risers. The ensemble had two outfits during the majority of Schmidt’s tenure at Capital High School, a fall outfit and a spring outfit (see fig.
8.10). The outfits were color coordinated with the women often in dresses or a skirt/top combination and the men in suits or pants with a shirt and a tie, suspenders, or a vest.215
Fig. 8.10. The Capital Singers (1986 - Linda Schmidt, Director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival (Upper) and the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival (lower). This photo displays their fall and spring outfits - photos courtesy of the subject.
215 Capital High School Yearbook, Talon 25th Anniversary Anything Goes, 1990, Boise, Idaho,172-177. .
177 At jazz festivals and at school concerts, the Capital Singers were amplified by a few area/group microphones and soloists were amplified by a couple of dynamic solo microphones. Towards the end of the time-period investigated (1990) when other vocal jazz ensembles were getting smaller in numbers and using one microphone per student,
Schmidt kept the Capital Singers large with a typical membership of 30 vocalists and remained on boom/area miking. She did this in order to expose as many students to the vocal jazz idiom as possible. Schmidt was not a fan of the number limit rule of 24 vocalists at festivals and she often argued with festival directors about the rule. Schmidt’s pleas were heard when Dave Barduhn increased the number limit from 24 to 28 singers at the
Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival when he became the festival director in 1989. The audition process for Schmidt’s Capital Singers, she tested each auditionee’s tonal memory with a series of vocal recall exercises and had them complete both a rhythmic and pitched sight- reading example. She also personally interviewed each auditionee asking them questions like, “How do you see yourself fitting into the ensemble?” and, “What’s your motivation to be in this group?” Schmidt accepted students who had a balance of musical skill and outstanding work ethic.216
Linda Schmidt – Jazz Education Through Listening /Mentorships/ Vocal Jazz Festival
Participation
When she started at Capital High School, Schmidt bought a fake book to learn all of the jazz standards and she began listening to professional jazz performers on a regular basis. “I immersed myself in singers who sang the style in order to replicate the sounds of the style in my ensembles. I liked the style, so it wasn’t hard for me to listen.” Some of the
216 Dave Barduhn, oral interview by author, Pasco, Washington, April 22, 2017.
178 professional jazz vocalists who influenced Schmidt were: Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Mel
Tormé, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, Mark Murphy, Nat King
Cole, Tony Bennet, Al Jarreau, Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Nancy Wilson, Harry
Connick Jr., George Benson, and many more. Schmidt preferred listening to the vocal jazz ensembles: Take 6, The Ritz, Lambert Hendricks and Ross, the Swingle Singers, the New
York Voices, the Four Freshmen, the Hi-Lo’s and Singers Unlimited. Her favorite professional vocal jazz ensemble was the Manhattan Transfer. “They had it all, the style, performance and sound,” according to Schmidt. She admits that she has a more traditional jazz taste and is not a huge fan of fusion and listening to strictly instrumental jazz was something that grew on her. But, “I listened to it as I thought it was the core of the idiom.”
Miles Davis is her favorite instrumental soloist, and the big bands lead by Ellington, Miller, and Shaw all influenced her vocal jazz teaching career.217
Schmidt felt that the vocal jazz festivals set a standard for the idiom in Boise saying,
”When you’re put in a competitive situation, I think you really pay attention, and think, what can I do to make my group sound like that group?” In February of 1985, Schmidt attended the University of Idaho Jazz Festival with her very first Capital Singers. The ensemble would participate in the festival annually finishing first in the AAAA (largest school population) division five times between 1985 and 1990 (see fig. 8.11). The aspect
Schmidt appreciated the most about the festival was the night performances given by the world-renowned jazz artists.218
217 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016. 218 Capital High School Yearbook, Talon 1986 One Word Says It All, 1986, Boise, Idaho, 58.
179
Fig. 8.11. The Capital Singers (1987 - Linda Schmidt, director) at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival - photo courtesy of the subject.
The Capital Singers also attended the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival at Mt. Hood
Community College from Schmidt’s first year at Capital (1984/1985) through 1990.
Schmidt said, of the festival, “it was the granddaddy of vocal jazz festivals and always felt more competitive than the other festivals.” She also talked about the difference between the judging of the daytime competition and the night sing-off. She felt like, “the daytime was much more accountable, as there were scoring sheets, whereas the night was about subjective decisions (mimics -judges speaking to each other “well who did you like?”).” She was made aware of what really went on at the adjudicators table for the finals when she began judging the festival in the early 1990s. The Capital Singers placed four of the six times they entered in the AAAA (largest school population) division at the Northwest Vocal
180 Jazz Festival from 1985 to 1990, including three consecutive second place finishes from
1987 through 1989.219
Schmidt and the Capital Singers attended the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited
Festival held in Pasco, WA twice (1987 & 1990) during the time-period investigated (1970
– 1990). They won the AAAA (largest school size) division on both occasions. Schmidt
“loved” the festival because, “it was centered around the groups and not the hype.” Steve
Baer, the successor of Byron Gjerde, added a Concert Choir Competition day to the festival in 1986. The concert choir day always occured on the Friday preceding the Saturday jazz choir day. Schmidt appreciated it because she could take multiple groups to the festival and make a large group tour out of the event. Schmidt and the Capital Singers also attended the
Treasure Valley Jazz Festival (Ontario, OR) and the Boise State University Vocal Jazz Festival on a regular basis during the mid- to late-80s.220
Schmidt met many of her early mentors while participating in the vocal jazz festival circuit in the northwest, including Hal Malcom, Dave Barduhn, Waldo King, Ken Kraintz,
Frank DeMiero, Dan Bukvitch, Kirk Marcy, Dave Cazier, and Dave Cross (see fig. 8.12).
Schmidt learned “that more is not always better” from actively listening; to Cross’ groups at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival. She remembers that the charts he would use with his groups from Cascade High School (Everett, WA) had simpler part writing than many of the arrangements she was doing with the Capital Singers, “but he’d focus on swinging hard and really nail the style.” Boise colleagues Jerry Vevig, Lonnie Cline, and Glen Grant, also mentored and influenced Schmidt as she inherited and continued Vevig’s traditions. She
219 Dave Barduhn, “Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival Winners,” Mt. Hood Community College, May 2017. 220 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December14, 2016.
181 loved the creativity in the “out there” groups like Cline’s and learned about rhythm sections from listening to Grant’s rhythm section, The Squids.221
Fig. 8.12. Dave Cross - photo courtesy of the subject.
Linda Schmidt – Rhythm Section and Other Vocal Jazz Events
During Schmidt’s tenure with the Capital Singers, the rhythm section consisted of piano, bass, drums, and guitar, with instruments such as saxophone or trumpet, a section of horns, or auxiliary percussion, added on occasion. In the audition process for the Capital
Singers rhythm section Schmidt had each player learn and play through a standard jazz tune as well as play jazz scales on their instrument. When Schmidt was first introducing a
221 Hal Malcolm, “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of “Jazz” in Vocal-Ensemble Music Education” Gresham, OR: Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998, 29.
182 new vocal jazz arrangement to the Capital Singers she felt it was more efficient to keep the rhythm section and singers separate. She would teach the vocalists their parts in the choir room while the combo rehearsed the charts in a practice room nearby. Schmidt composed and posted in her office, a detailed rehearsal schedule for the combo to follow, when they were rehearsing apart from the vocalists. Schmidt required that her combo members know the blues scales in every key, and they would often practice playing the blues together, while separated from the choir.222
Schmidt loved performing arrangements containing written out rhythm parts with the Capital Singers as it was clear what the rhythm section were supposed to be playing.
However, many of the arrangements the Capital Singers performed during her tenure at the school, included only chord changes for the piano and bass players and no specific musical information for drummers. When teaching her rhythm sections (see fig. 8.13), Schmidt felt like she could always hear whether her bass players were playing accurate bass lines and used her piano skills and knowledge of chord structures to help fix issues she was hearing in their playing. She taught her piano players to voice the chord calls of the chart in fourths; and communicated with her drummers by singing or rhythmically speaking the ideas she wanted to come from the drum kit. Like Lonnie Cline, Schmidt taught her rhythm sections to vary musical textures within the vocal jazz arrangements. This allowed for the amazing balance between her choir and rhythm section, described by other educators in this document.223
222 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016. 223 Capital Singers, The Capital Singers 1990, 1990, Don Cederstrom Custom Recording.
183
Fig. 8.13. The bass player and drummer for the 1988 Capital Singers - photo courtesy of the subject.
Schmidt attended many state, regional, and national conventions of the Music
Educators National Conference and the American Choral Directors Association throughout the 1980s and always attended the sessions and concerts related to vocal jazz. She loved all that she learned at these events as they always provided her with new musical ideas to try with her students. “I would always return to Capital energized after a convention,” recalls
Schmidt. From the70s to the 80s, Schmidt and the Capital Singers performed at several conventions including the 1986 American Choral Directors Association Northwest Regional
Convention in Missoula, MT, the 1989 All-Northwest Music Educators National Conference
Convention in Boise, ID, and the 1990 American Choral Directors Association Northwest
Regional Convention in Boise, ID.224
224 ACDA, “The Northwestern Division: Village Red Lion Motor Inn Missoula, Montana March 13-15,” The Choral Journal 26, no. 6 (January 1986): 52.
184 Throughout her tenure at Capital High School, Schmidt hosted many vocal jazz exchanges with other ensembles and she and her students, “learned so much from those experiences.” During these exchanges, groups would perform their vocal jazz tunes for each other and often a jam session including vocal improvisation would occur. Schmidt loved participating in vocal jazz exchanges, because they were a more casual way of sharing and learning than a festival. In the late 1980s, Schmidt and the Capital Singers hosted exchange concerts with the pioneering collegiate vocal jazz ensembles, Genesis from Mt. Hood
Community College and Soundsation from Edmonds Community College, when they traveled through Boise on recruiting tours. She would invite all of the Boise Valley area vocal jazz ensembles and their directors to join these events and more often than not, there were students from seven to eight area schools represented at these exchange concerts.225
Linda Schmidt – Vocal Jazz Arrangements Linda and Early Influences on Boise Valley
Groups
Schmidt loved the exchanges with Genesis and Soundsation because their directors,
Dave Barduhn and Kirk Marcy, would bring her “care packages.” These “care packages,” contained their latest arrangements and/or any of their specific arrangements she might have requested. Schmidt found many of the arrangements she performed with the Capital
Singers while attending vocal jazz festivals. She took note of arrangements she liked while listening to other groups’ performances and then actively sought out those arrangements.
Schmidt often approached the director of the ensemble who sang the arrangement to obtain it, or she would go to the arranger herself if it was an unpublished arrangement.
Schmidt was not frugal with the vocal jazz library she inherited from Jerry Vevig at Capital
225 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
185 High School; and she would often “share” or “trade” arrangements from the library with other vocal jazz directors.226
From 1970 to 1990, Schmidt and The Capital Singers performed many unpublished arrangements by Dave Barduhn, Dave Cazier, Norm Wallen, and Kirk Marcy as well as some published arrangements by Jack Kunz, Michele Weir, Kirby Shaw, Kenny Kraintz, Gene
Perling, and Phil Mattson. When Schmidt performed published arrangements with the
Capital Singers, she states “I was always re-arranging the charts as I think the biggest compliment to a composer/arranger is to be able to manipulate their arrangement.” The programming of a vocal jazz set, particularly for a vocal jazz festival, was important to
Schmidt. Throughout her career with the Capital Singers she always opened her sets with a swing tune, followed it with a ballad, and closed with a “barn burner.” When programming a vocal jazz set, Schmidt always considered audience appeal and tried to program varying styles in order to keep the audience engaged.227
Many of the arrangements sung by the Capital Singers contained sections for vocal improvisation (see fig. 8.14). When teaching scat singing, Schmidt consistently played recordings of outstanding jazz improvisers in class, allowing ensemble members to soak in and begin to replicate the riffs of the greats in their own vocal improvisations. She would also have the students scat along with professional artists’ recordings. According to
Schmidt, they would be a fraction of a beat behind, but they would learn “licks” that way.
When teaching beginning improvisers, Schmidt would have the students sing the melody line of the tune on scat syllables changing only a few notes. She also taught the Capital
226 Capital Singers, The Capital Singers Take 89, 1989, Walker Brothers Recording. Cassette. 227 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
186 Singers blues scales as well as blues progressions and they often practiced scatting over the blues form in class. In order to get rid of her students fear of scat syllables, she would have the students scat the ingredients from soup cans. Schmidt also recalled using some of the scatting exercises from Kirby Shaw’s book Vocal Jazz Style during warm-ups with her ensembles throughout her teaching career.228
Fig. 8.14. Two of the many scat singers from Capital High School during Linda Schmidt’s tenure at the school - photos courtesy of the subject.
Schmidt thinks that professional vocal groups like The New Christy Minstrels, The
Ray Conniff Singers, The Fifth Dimension, and The Fred Waring Singers, all influenced the early Boise Valley vocal jazz directors as they were pop oriented which then led to jazz.
According to Schmidt, specialty ensembles from the Boise Valley began as
228 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
187 bluegrass/pop/folk groups that became more vocal jazz oriented as pop styles of the 60s morphed into jazz. While participating in vocal jazz festivals throughout the northwest region Schmidt was often asked, “What’s in the water over there…what’s making the Boise groups so good?” Schmidt thinks that vocal jazz ensembles from the Boise Valley in the
1970s and 1980s, were more edgy with programming choices and treatment of arrangements. “They were exciting!” (see fig. 8.15) People also recognized Boise groups, because they were not afraid to experiment with the creative aspects of the genre. Schmidt taught at Capital High School, for 23 years, until the spring of 2006 when she went into school administration.229
Fig. 8.15. The Capital Singers (1988 - Linda Schmidt, director) performing at an assembly at Capital High School - photo courtesy of the subject.
229 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016 .
188 CHAPTER NINE
MERIDIAN SENIOR AND WEST JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – QUINN VAN PAEPEGHEM AND
PAUL OLSON, DIRECTORS
In the fall of 1980, Quinn Van Paepeghem (see fig. 9.1) replaced Bruce Walker as the choral director at his alma mater Meridian High School in Joint School District Number
Two. Van Paepeghem had experience with vocal jazz ensemble singing when he arrived at
Meridian High School (1980) as he had been a student of Lonnie Cline’s in the Meridian
High School New Dimensions in 1974 and 1975.230
Fig. 9.1. Quinn Van Paepeghem - photo courtesy of the subject.
230 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author. Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016.
189 Quinn Van Paepeghem – Early Biography
Quinn Van Paepeghem was born in Seattle, WA in 1957 and raised in Meridian, ID.
His parents were music lovers who met while singing together in musicals at Meridian High
School in the late 1940s. His mother played the piano and organ while his father played the tonette as well as the “record player.” Van Paepeghem was the youngest of three children and his sisters started playing the piano at the age of five, but he was not interested in the instrument as it just looked too hard to play. Around the age of ten he took up the guitar after his mother purchased one in a department store and presented it to him saying, “you are going to learn how to play this.” Throughout his elementary school years, Van
Paepeghem’s regular classroom teachers encouraged him to play his guitar in class. He sang in the choral program and played in the jazz band at Meridian Junior High School from
1969 through 1971.231
In the choral department at Meridian Junior High School, Van Paepeghem sang for
Phil Peterson his 7th and 8th-grade years and Jerry Van Order his 9th-grade year. It was while singing for Van Order that Van Paepeghem first accompanied a choral ensemble on the guitar when he played on the tune Tamale Joe. A graduate of the University of North
Texas in Denton, Dave Wilson was the director of bands at Meridian Junior High School while Van Paepeghem attended the school, and under his tutelage, the jazz ensemble played difficult arrangements and outscored all of the area high school jazz bands at festivals. Van Paepeghem credits Wilson for teaching him to play in the style of jazz guitarist Freddie Greene and inspiring him to love jazz and pursue it as a career. Of
231 Quinn Van Paepeghem, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
190 rehearsals with Wilson, Van Paepeghem recalled, “I was playing all of these amazing chords and thinking that this is what I’m supposed to do with my life.”232
From the school years 1972/1973 through 1975/1975 Van Paepeghem attended
Meridian High School where he played in the band program under the direction of Ron Van
Order and sang in the choral program for Lonnie Cline. Cline began his tenure at Meridian
High School Van Paepeghem’s junior year (1973/74) and Van Paepeghem served as Cline’s first Meridian High School choir president while singing in the concert choir and playing guitar in the newly titled New Dimensions, under his direction (see fig. 9.2). According to
Van Paepeghem, Cline’s vision for the New Dimensions was for them to be a vocal jazz ensemble and he immersed them in the northwest vocal jazz scene by participating in vocal jazz festivals in order for them to learn about the idiom.233
The first vocal jazz type arrangement Van Paepeghem performed with Cline and the
New Dimensions was Where is the Love. Of the experience he recalls, “it was cool to do it with rhythm section and actually kind of sound like something beyond a choir trying to sing pop music.” At the New Dimension’s first appearance at the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival in
1974, Van Paepeghem caught the attention of Waldo King of Roosevelt High School while playing a guitar solo on Dave Barduhn’s arrangement of Here’s That Rainy Day. Van
Paepeghem recalls that King approached him after the performance and congratulated him, which was monumental for Van Paepeghem as King and his Vocal Jazz Ensemble were the role model for all of the high school vocal jazz ensembles in the northwest region at that
232 Quinn Van Paepeghem, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016. 233 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa 74, “New Director Unites Choir” 1974, 78-81. .
191 time. Van Paepeghem credits Cline for exposing him to the names and sounds of the great professional vocal jazz soloists and making him aware that there was a connection between vocal and instrumental jazz. Van Paepeghem recalls that under the direction of Cline, “my ears were opening, big time, and Lonnie encouraged me to try things.”234
Fig. 9.2. The Meridian High School New Dimension (1975 - Lonnie Cline, director). Quinn Van Paepeghem is holding his guitar, second from the left in the photo - photo courtesy of the subject.
After graduating from Meridian High School in the spring of 1975, Van Paepeghem matriculated at Boise State University in the fall of the same year. Throughout his 4 years at the university, Van Paepeghem played in the school’s jazz band which was directed by Mel
234 Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program. Mount Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, May 17, 1974.
192 Shelton his freshmen year (1975/1976) and Mike Sandball (1976/1977-1979/1980) his sophomore through senior years. Sandball, like Dave Wilson at Meridian Junior High
School, was a graduate of North Texas University in Denton, TX. Van Paepeghem recalls that Sandball’s emphasis on listening was like nothing he had experienced before as he expected his students to listen to jazz at least an hour each day in order to learn the style.
Van Paepeghem credits Sandball for introducing him to jazz pianist Lyle Mays and jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and exposing him to the language of jazz during daily listening sessions which occurred at the start of each rehearsal of the Boise State University Jazz
Band.235
Van Paepeghem’s sophomore year at Boise State University, he caught the choir directing “bug” when he began to lead the choir at his family’s church. As he was new to choral directing, Van Paepeghem approached Dr. Wilber D. Elliott, Boise State University
Music Department Chair and director of the school’s top choral ensemble the
Meistersingers, for help. A mentorship started between the two and Elliott began taking
Van Paepeghem along to the choral festivals he adjudicated in and around the Boise region.
At these festivals, Van Paepeghem sat with the adjudicators and learned what they looked for in a choral ensemble. Van Paepeghem believes that by the time he started teaching he had an idea of what to do with a choir because of the many opportunities Wilber D. Elliott provided him outside of the collegiate classroom. Van Paepeghem graduated from Boise
State University, in the spring of 1980, with a BMUS in Music Education degree, with a minor in guitar.236
235 Quinn Van Paepeghem, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016. 236 Ibid.
193 Quinn Van Paepeghem – Meridian High School and the New Dimensions
In the fall of 1980, Van Paepeghem accepted his first teaching position in Joint
School District Number 2 teaching at his alma mater, Meridian High School. He succeeded
Bruce Walker who had served as choir director at the school for 3 years (1977/1978 -
1979/1980). Walker left teaching to become a sales agent for a fundraising company in order to raise more funds to send his two oldest sons on missions for the Mormon Church.
When Van Paepeghem arrived at Meridian High School, it was still the only high school in
Joint School District Number 2, despite the fact that the school’s population exceeded 2,400 students. The choral program featured four curricular choirs a 60 voice women’s choir, an
80 voice a cappella choir, a 25 voice men’s choir; and the New Dimensions, a 24 voice vocal jazz ensemble (see fig. 9.3). During his tenure at Meridian High School, all of the students in the New Dimensions were required to be dually enrolled in the school’s a cappella choir as well. This had long been a policy of the Boise Public Schools and Van Paepeghem was not sure when the Meridian School District adopted the rule.237
According to Van Paepeghem, the number of singers admitted to the New
Dimensions each year was dictated by the rules at vocal jazz festivals occurring in the region at that time as they had a “strict” number limit of 24 vocalists. He remembers fellow
Boise Valley colleagues, Jerry Vevig at Capital High School and Glen Grant at Borah High
School, having larger vocal jazz ensembles, which meant that in order for their ensembles to remain competitive at vocal jazz festivals some of their students had to stand off stage and rotate in and out of festival performances. Van Paepeghem felt strongly that all of the
237 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa Volume 60, 1981, Meridian, Idaho, 106-109. .
194 students in the New Dimensions should be able to participate in ensemble performances and therefore maintained a strict membership of 24 vocalists in the ensemble. The New
Dimensions performed in the Fall, Christmas, and Spring choral concerts hosted by the choral department at Meridian High School, sang for business parties and other events held in the Boise Valley throughout the year, and participated in at least four vocal jazz festivals held throughout the northwestern region.238
Fig. 9.3. The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1981 - Quinn Van Paepeghem, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
For performances, the New Dimensions wore outfits that were coordinated in some fashion and stood on two or three sets of three step choral risers in various standing formations. Van Paepeghem typically amplified the choral ensemble using two or three
238 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016.
195 area microphones and the ensemble’s soloists with two close proximity/dynamic microphones (see fig. 9.4). In auditions for the New Dimensions, Van Paepeghem checked each auditionee’s vocal range and had them complete a series of pitch recall exercises and scales consisting of (a) a major arpeggio going up, (b) a minor arpeggio going down, (c) a recall exercise containing the interval of a minor sixth, (d) a whole tone scale, and (e) a recall exercise containing a series of perfect fourths.239
The accompaniment group that Van Paepeghem used in the New Dimensions was comprised of a standard jazz trio consisting of piano, bass, and drums. Although he had played in rhythm sections his entire academic life, when it came time to teaching one for the first time, Van Paepeghem noted that it was a completely new ball game. When he first arrived at Meridian High School, he learned how to work with the rhythm section through trial and error. He was constantly listening to what was going on in the rhythm section, analyzing what worked and what did not work in their playing, and trying new techniques until something worked or made what they were playing better. Van Paepeghem exposed the members of the New Dimensions combo to jazz style by playing recordings of professional jazz players during rehearsals and encouraging them to listen more outside of class.240
239 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa Volume 62, 1983, Meridian, Idaho, 184-187. 240 Quinn Van Paepeghem, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
196
Fig. 9.4. The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1983 - Quinn Van Paepeghem, director) performing live - photo courtesy of the subject.
Quinn Van Paepeghem – Mentorships and Vocal Jazz Festival Participation
According to Van Paepeghem, in the early 1970s, Jerry Vevig was the first choral director in the Boise Valley to take pop tunes and turn them into jazz. He remembers hearing Vevig’s group the Capital Singers for the first time in 1974 while he was in the New
Dimensions at Meridian High School and thinking that it was different from anything he had heard before. Van Paepeghem had an appreciation for the sound of the chords in vocal jazz-type literature and he felt that Vevig had an understanding of how to balance jazz chords and make them work. When Van Paepeghem started his teaching career, he sought out Vevig’s guidance and invited him in to Meridian High School to work with the New
Dimensions on a regular basis. After Vevig’s clinics, the two would discuss the ensemble in general and vocal jazz as a whole over breakfast and a mentor-student relationship
197 developed between the two during Van Paepeghem’s 4-year tenure at Meridian High
School.241
Van Paepeghem became a fan of Frank Demiero (see fig. 9.5) and his ensemble
Soundsation from Edmonds Community College after he heard them perform a concert in the Boise area in the early 1980s. He then began listening to recordings of Soundsation on a regular basis. While listening, Van Paepeghem noticed and learned from the creative things that Demiero would do to an arrangement in order to make Soundsation’s interpretation of it unique. Often, Demiero would change a group section into a solo section or add the verse at the beginning of a tune, recalls Van Paepeghem. He also witnessed Demiero’s work in clinic settings and was impressed with what he could get out of students. According to
Van Paepeghem, “Frank Demiero could motivate anyone and get poor singers to sound great.”242
Fig. 9.5. Frank Demiero - photo courtesy of the subject.
241 Jerry Vevig, oral interview by author, Star, Idaho, December 21, 2016. 242 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 83, 1983, Boise, Idaho, 76. .
198 One of the vocal jazz festivals that the New Dimensions attended each year of Van
Paepeghem’s tenure at Meridian High School was the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited
Festival in Pasco, WA. Founded in 1971, the festival functioned as a jazz band event until
1974, when Byron Gjerde, the choral director at Columbia Basin College, added a vocal jazz ensemble portion to the event. Van Paepeghem became acquainted with Gjerde at the festival and the two developed a student/mentor relationship over the years. They often discussed topics related to vocal jazz teaching, particularly literature, over the phone and
Van Paepeghem credits Gjerde for putting him in touch with vocal jazz arranger Dave
Barduhn, whose vocal jazz arrangements were like gold at the time, according to Van
Paepeghem (see fig. 9.7). In 1984, Van Paepeghem’s last year at Meridian High School, the
New Dimensions took first place in the AAAA (largest school size) division at the Columbia
Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival (see fig. 9.6). “It was the first major festival I ever won,” recalls Van Paepeghem.243
Fig. 9.6. The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1984 - Quinn Van Paepeghem, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
243 Quinn Van Paepeghem, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
199
Fig. 9.7 - Quinn VanPaepeghem’s mentor Byron Gjerde (left) pictured with Dave Barduhn. The two worked together at Columbia Basin College in the mid 1980’s - photo courtesy of Dave Cazier.
The positive atmosphere that Gjerde and his student staff created at the Columbia
Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival was what made it the favorite festival of Van
Paepeghem and the New Dimensions. From 1980 through 1984 the ensemble also participated in the District III/BSU Vocal Jazz Festival, The University of Idaho Jazz Festival, and The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival. Van Paepeghem was not fond of the University of
Idaho Jazz Festival, as he hated rolling the dice to determine what selection the New
Dimensions were required to perform during their set at the festival. He also felt that the evening concerts were like a big drinking party. “Sarah Vaughan performed drunk and fell off a stool when she was the guest artist in 1984,”244 according Van Paepeghem.
244 Quinn Van Paepeghem, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
200 “The Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival was a serious competition, you went there to compete and hear other groups,” recalls Van Paepeghem. The event was the largest high school vocal jazz festival in the country at that time, attracting over 100 ensembles each year. At the festival, Van Paepeghem learned from watching and listening to the many outstanding groups that participated and would often steal and perform many of the arrangements he heard there. The festival also provided an opportunity for Van
Paepeghem and the New Dimensions to share their unique approach to vocal jazz with other ensembles; Van Paepeghem felt like creativity was appreciated and rewarded at the
Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival and not necessarily at the other festivals.245
When programming a set for a vocal jazz festival Van Paepeghem usually included
(a) a swing tune (b) a ballad - he preferred accompanied ballads to a cappella, and (c) something creative or different, such as a Latin groove (samba/bossa) chart. The vocal jazz arrangements interpreted by the New Dimensions featured scoring for SATB chorus with divisi and Dave Barduhn crafted most of the arrangements. Phil Azelton, Phil Mattson, Jack
Kunz, and Kirby Shaw were some of the other arrangers used by Van Paepeghem and the
New Dimensions from 1980 through 1984. When first presenting a tune to his ensemble,
Van Paepeghem often played a recording of another group singing the arrangement in order to provide his students with an idea of how the tune could sound. Many of the arrangements sung by the New Dimensions contained sections for vocal improvisation and when filling these scat sections, Van Paepeghem utilized students who already had an idea of how to scat sing.246
245 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016. 246 New Dimensions, The New Dimensions in Concert,” 1983, Live Recording at Meridian High School, Cassette.
201 Van Paepeghem believed that the community college vocal jazz ensembles run by
Hal Malcolm and Dave Barduhn (Mt. Hood Community College), Byron Gjerde and Dave
Cazier (Columbia Basin Community College), and Frank Demiero, Dave Cross, Dave
Barduhn, and Kirk Marcy (Edmonds Community College), had a major influence on the sound and performance ideal of the vocal jazz ensembles from the Boise Valley in the
1970s and 1980s. According to him, they achieved this through their live performances on tour, at conventions, and at festivals as well as through the production distribution and consumption of recordings of their ensembles (see fig. 9.8) After a 4-year tenure
(1980/1981-1983/1984), Van Paepeghem left Meridian High School to teach at Bend High
School in Bend, OR. Angela Wardella replaced Van Paepeghem at Meridian High School for the 1984/1985 school year.247
Fig. 9.8. An advertisement for recordings of the “Soundsation” Vocal Jazz Choir as it appeared in the NAJE Educator Journal. Photo courtesy of the subject.
247 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author. Caldwell, Idaho, December 17, 2016.
202 The year after Quinn Van Paepeghem began teaching at Meridian High School
(1981/1982), Paul Olson (see fig. 9.9) took Sue Hough-Block’s post at West Junior High
School. Before his arrival in Boise, Olson was exposed to vocal jazz education while singing in Gene Aitken’s Vocal Jazz Ensemble 1 at the University of Northern Colorado.248
Fig. 9.9. Paul Olson - photo courtesy of the subject.
248 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December14, 2016.
203 Paul Olson – Early Biography
Paul Olson was born on October 13, 1954 in Mayville, ND. He came from a musical family as his father played saxophone and his mother was a vocalist and a piano player. He began studying piano with his aunt in the 3rd grade. Olson attended the 1st and 2nd grades in a one-room schoolhouse in the Wold Township of North Dakota. After the school closed, he attended Manville Elementary School where he began playing the saxophone in the 5th grade. The same year (1965), Olson had his first experience singing choral music when he joined the choir at his church. While attending Mayville Junior and Senior High Schools,
Olson was an active participant in the band and choral programs under the direction of
Roger Kolsrud. As Kolsrud was a graduate of Concordia University, he used many of the
Lutheran choral music school traditions in his music program in the Ma-Port CG Public
School system (Mayville, ND). 249
Olson recalls that the choirs at Mayville High School rehearsed and performed in the same formation as did the influential Lutheran collegiate choirs (block sections with the women in the front of the choir & the men in the back). During music concerts at the school the students created a large backdrop which hung behind the choir, a tradition borrowed from St. Olaf College. In the early 1970s, popular music interpretations were beginning to become a part of choral music programming in the secondary schools of the upper mid- western region of the United States where Olson grew up and he recalls singing in a small pull out group during his senior year in high school. Their repertoire included the songs
Age of Aquarius, Let the Sunshine In, and Close to You by the Carpenters. “I thought that
249 Mayville High School Yearbook Picture, 1972, mayportcg.com.
204 heaven had just broke open, it was glorious. You didn’t do popular music when you were a
St. Olaf clone-type school,” recalls Olson.250
After graduating from Mayville High School in the spring of 1972, Olson studied music at Mayville State University in Mayville, ND from the fall of 1972 to the spring of
1974 and Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL from the fall of 1974 through the spring of 1976. While attending both universities, Olson sang in a variety of choral ensembles whose musical selections were religious in nature. Paul graduated from Trinity
International University in the spring of 1976 with a BA degree in music and took a position as minister of music at a church in Littleton, CO. In the fall of 1976, after 4 years in
Littleton, Olson left to begin graduate work at the University of Northern Colorado, in
Greeley.251
Upon arrival at the university, Olson’s school advisor encouraged him to sing in one the school’s renowned vocal jazz groups directed by Gene Aitken (see fig. 9.10) as he felt that Olson needed to broaden his musical perspectives. During his audition for Aitken,
Olson was asked to scat sing and although he did not know what scat singing was, much less how to do it, he gave it his best shot and was “terrible.” Despite his lack of skill in vocal improvisation, he made Vocal Jazz Ensemble 1 at UNC. Olson appreciated his year in the ensemble and the early exposure to the vocal jazz idiom that Gene Aitken provided for him.
He graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in the spring of 1981, with a MME degree.252
250 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016. 251 Mayville High School Yearbook Picture, 1972, mayportcg.com. 252 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016.
205
Fig. 9.10. Gene Aitken - photo courtesy of the subject.
Paul Olson – West Junior High and The West Junior High Singers
In the fall of 1981, Olson accepted his first and only public school choral teaching position at West Junior High School in the Boise School District. At the school, he replaced
Sue Hough-Block who left after a 10-year tenure to teach choral music at West Albany High
School in Albany, OR. The choral program at West Junior High consisted of an 80 voice
Concert Choir comprised of 9th grade girls and 8th and 9th grade boys, a mixed 7th grade choir of about 60 students; an 8th grade girl’s choir of about 50, and the Swing Choir (see fig. 9.11.), which Olson renamed the West Junior High Singers in 1984. According to Olson,
Jerry Vevig naming his ensemble The Capital Singers inspired him to name his ensemble the West Junior High Singers.253
253 West Junior High School Yearbook, Montesa 82, 1982, Boise, Idaho, 40-42.
.
206
Fig. 9.11. The West Junior High Singers (1982 - Paul Olson, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
The West Junior High Singers sang at Open House Night in September and at the
Boise School District Junior High School Chamber/Madrigal Festival in October beginning in 1986. They also participated in the Fall, Christmas, Pre-Festival, and Spring choral concerts held at West Junior High School. They performed between five to ten times at retirement homes and business parties in the Boise community during the Christmas season, toured their elementary feeder schools to recruit each spring, sang for adjudication at the Boise School District Junior High School Large Group Festival in April, and performed at a minimum of two vocal jazz festivals during the second semester. According to Olson, the membership of the West Junior High Singers (see fig. 9.12) varied between 20 and 30
207 vocalists throughout the 1980s. In performances, the ensemble wore homemade outfits which were coordinated in some fashion and stood in various orders on two or three sets of three step choral risers. Olson amplified the choral ensemble using a few area microphones and soloists with a pair of dynamic “Sure” SM 58 microphones.254
Olson began the audition process for his ensemble with a series of vocal recall exercises and a simple sight-reading exercise in order to determine each applicant’s musical skill level. He then had each student sing Happy Birthday and/or My Country ‘tis of
Thee in order to hear their tone quality and evaluate their level of vibrato. Typically, Olson selected students who had participated in his choral training ensembles at West Junior
High School for the West Junior High Singers as he knew their temperament and work ethic. He accepted 30 students in his ensemble. Throughout the 1980s, the accompanying group for the West Junior High Singers consisted of a piano, bass, drums, and guitar, with additional instruments used on occasion depending on the repertoire being performed and the players available to Olson. In the mid 1980s, the combo began holding an extra rehearsal every Wednesday after school in addition to their regular classroom rehearsals with the vocalists. Olson recalls that, in performances, all of the combo members sang with the choir on a cappella arrangements and that he taught his piano players to avoid using the pedals when playing in the jazz style.255
254 West Junior High School Yearbook, Montesa 86, 1986, Boise, Idaho. 70-73. 255 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016.
208
Figure 9.12. The West Junior High School Swing Choir (1987 – Paul Olson, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Paul Olson – Vocal Jazz Literature / Festivals
According to Olson, he began participating in vocal jazz ensemble singing because he was teaching in the Boise School District and all of the other teachers were doing it. He recalled that all of the Boise junior high directors were good friends but they were also competitive. He believes that this healthy competition is what led to the high performance and achievement level attained by the junior high schools in the Boise School District. Olson recalls that throughout the 1980s, he was doing a mixture of pop and madrigal octavos with his ensemble, as well as many vocal jazz arrangements by Kirby Shaw. He bought
Kirby Shaw’s music because it worked. “He put it on paper. He made it simple enough. He put in the combo for all of us who didn’t know what was going on, and like him or not like him, I attribute a lot of success to his arrangements and to other arrangers of the time who were doing similar things.”256
256 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016.
209 Another one of those arrangers whose music Olson programmed was Joyce Eilers
(see fig. 9.13). According to Olson, Eilers wrote pseudo pop tunes and her three-part arrangements often saved the day with his boys’ changing voices as there was a cambiata part. He was a fan of the professional vocal jazz ensemble The Manhattan Transfer so his ensemble performed many published arrangements of their tunes throughout the 1980s.
The Boy From New York City is one of their specific arrangements Olson recalled performing multiple times during his tenure at the school.257
Fig. 9.13. An advertisement promoting early vocal jazz literature - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
From the school years 1981/1982 through 1989/1990, Olson and the West Junior
257 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016.
210 High Singers participated in several vocal jazz festivals including The Boise State
University/District III Vocal Jazz festival, the University of Idaho/Lionel Hampton Jazz
Festival; the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival; and the Treasure Valley
Community College Vocal Jazz Festival. They attended The University of Idaho/Lionel
Hampton Jazz Festival once in either 1982 or 1983 as there was precedence, since Sue
Hough-Block had taken the Swing Choir. At the event, the West Junior High Singers sang
‘pseudo’ jazz songs, finished third in the junior high performance division, and first in the junior high sight-reading division. Olson rarely attended the University of Idaho Jazz
Festival because he had to have singers “sit out” of performance numbers due to the rule that limited the number of vocalists allowed on the stage to 24. Olson did not feel right about not having all of the students perform and because of this, he rarely chose to participate in the event. He and the West Junior High Singers only attended a few other times in the late 1980s.258
Olson also entered the West Junior High Singers in the Columbia Basin College Jazz
Unlimited Festival several times in the latter part of the 1980s. Olson recalls that they would often get beat by Northwood Junior High School from Spokane, WA (Shawn Wright, director) at the event. In retrospect, he feels that they won because the songs they performed “fit them” and they had so many improvisational solos. He also felt that he and the West Junior High Singers were not doing the jazz style correctly and they didn’t have the right charts.259
258 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016. 259 Rich Lapp, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
211 Paul Olson – Lessons Learned at Vocal Jazz Events
When he attended festivals, Olson would often go up to directors who performed arrangements he liked and ask them if he could have a copy of the chart. According to
Olson, “There was this incredible sense of sharing…or stealing…whatever you want to call it, at vocal jazz festivals.” Olson specifically appreciated the adjudicator feedback that he received while attending festivals. (Major jazz festivals were providing both written and audiotaped critiques for directors and their ensembles. The only exception being, the Mt.
Hood Vocal Jazz Festival, which offered only written feedback). When adjudicators such as
Dave Barduhn and Dave Cazier would judge his ensembles at festivals, he listened to their critiques and year by year got better.260
Olson would also learn through the process of acclaimed adjudicators working his groups. He recalls that, during these clinics, the judges would give him and the ensemble specific feedback about what could be better (E.g., adjudicator to the group’s drummer:
This is the difference between a swing groove and a shuffle groove –). Olson kept a notebook where he meticulously recorded all that the adjudicators shared with the West
Junior High Singers. Olson learned a very specific lesson through participation in vocal jazz festivals, which was that he needed more scat soloists in his interpretations. At one particular festival, Olson remembers his ensemble performing the tunes In the Mood and
Woodchopper’s Ball and the judges asking, “you did your program well, but where is the improv?“261
As the decade progressed, Olson began to include improvisation in his musical selections. When teaching vocal improvisation, Olson believed that listening to examples
260 Glen Grant, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 10, 2016. 261 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016.
212 was important in the development of scat singers and he provided the students in the West
Junior High Singers with cassette tapes which included outstanding representations of scat singing by professionals and Boise Valley high school vocal jazz singers to listen and practice to. He also recalls using Sarah Vaughan’s recording of Sassy’s Blues to teach the members of the ensemble the blues form as well as vamps from Kirby Shaw’s book Vocal
Jazz Style to teach aspects of building a good vocal improvisation solo. After teaching one of the vamps in Shaw’s book to the class he had the students alter the vamp in three different ways (a) by changing a few of the written syllables, (b) by altering the melodic line of the vamp slightly, or (c) by creating words for the vamp.262
While listening to other vocal jazz ensembles perform at festivals Olson would “keep a list” of the charts that he heard and enjoyed. Two of his colleagues in the Boise School
District, Linda Schmidt at Fairmont Junior High School and Rob Newburn at East Junior
High School, were influential in his song selections as he “copied their charts a lot.” Olson also really listened closely to the groups from Capital High School (Jerry Vevig, Royce
Mitchell, & Linda Schmidt, directors) and it’s feeder program Fairmont Junior High School
(Linda Schmidt & Rich Lapp, directors), “because they were doing the ‘real thing’ and I wanted my groups to be like theirs.” Olson always considered his first vocal jazz mentor
Gene Aitken’s three-part philosophy when programming a set with a vocal jazz type ensemble: (a) start with a “bang,” (b) follow it with the softest song in the program, and (c) conclude with a tune that builds to the end of the set. In order to provide diversity in a set
Olson would often include a tune with a Latin groove (samba, bossa nova) and when first presenting a new vocal jazz type arrangement to the West Junior High Singers, he would
262 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
213 always try and play a professional recording of the chart for the ensemble in order to give them an idea of how it could be interpreted.263
Throughout his 33 year tenure at West Junior High School (1981/1982 -
2013/2014), Olson progressed and became more involved in vocal jazz education. In the last decade of his teaching career Mustang Magic (the name the group began to use in the
1990s, see fig.9.14) was often the winner of the junior high division at the Columbia Basin
College Jazz Unlimited Festival, in Pasco, Washington. One of the most influential people in
Paul Olson’s early vocal jazz exploration was colleague Rich Lapp (see figure 10.1), who taught at Fairmont Junior High School beginning in 1984/1985.264
Figure 9.14. The West Junior High School Swing Choir (1990, Paul Olson, director) - photo courtesy of the subject .
263 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016. 264 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016.
214 CHAPTER TEN
BOISE AND MERIDIAN SENIOR AND FAIRMONT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – BRUCE
WALKER, SUE HOUGH-BLOCK, VERN SWAIN, AND RICH LAPP, DIRECTORS
Fig. 10.1. Rich Lapp - photo courtesy of the subject.
Rich Lapp – Early Biography
Rich Lapp was born in Wenatchee, WA on September 10, 1958 and was raised in the city of LaVerne, in southern California. He grew up in a musical family as his mother was a violinist and his father sang in choirs throughout his life. While attending Grace Miller
Elementary School in the Bonita Unified School District, Lapp started singing in the children’s choir at his church and by the time he was attending Ramona Intermediate
215 School, he was singing in the adult choir at the church. He recalls that, “I sang with my mom in the alto section before my voice changed.” Lapp also began playing the violin, piano, and trumpet during his elementary school years. While the piano and violin playing “faded away,” he played the trumpet until he reached high school and then chose to participate in choir rather than band. In 1976, after actively participating in the Bonita High School choral program for 3 years, Rich graduated from Bonita High School.265
While attending Bonita High School, Lapp decided not to major in music since several significant people in his life told him that if he really liked music he should not go into it as a profession, because everybody hates what they do for work. Lapp decided instead to become a doctor and chose to attend an advanced pre-med program at the
University of California, Riverside beginning in the fall of 1976. Even though he was not majoring in music, Lapp took music theory courses and sang the tenor solos in Bach’s
Christmas Oratorio with the college choir at the university. He determined sometime near the end of his first semester that he wanted to do something he cared about for a career and that was not medicine, it was music. In the fall of 1977, Lapp transferred from the pre- med program at the University of California, Riverside into the choral music education program at the California State University at Fullerton.266
While attending California State University at Fullerton, Lapp sang in the 16-voice chamber choir as well as in the 60-voice large choral ensemble that performed at National
ACDA conventions. The choral department also put on an opera and a musical in alternating years and Lapp participated in these productions on a regular basis. During his
265 Bonita High School Yearbook, Echoes 1976, 1976, La Verne, California, 99 & 172- 173. 266 Rich Lapp, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
216 study at the university, the choral directors were David Thorson and Gordon Payne. Lapp recalls that Howard Swan had retired the spring before he arrived, lamenting, “I missed him by a semester.” John Cooksey was also beginning his groundbreaking research on the changing voice at California State University at Fullerton while Lapp was a student at the school and he served as one of Cooksey’s research assistants. Lapp graduated from
California State University at Fullerton in the spring of 1981 and taught choral music at
Bonita Junior and Senior High Schools, his alma maters, for 3 years (1981-1982/1983-
1984). In order to escape the ramifications of the recently passed Proposition 13, limiting property taxes. He chose to leave southern California and move to the northwestern region of the United States, in the summer of 1984. After traveling around the upper western region for 2 months applying for any available full-time secondary choral job, Boise School
District Supervisor of Music, Jerry Vevig, hired Lapp to replace Linda Schmidt at Fairmont
Junior High School in Boise, Idaho.267
Rich Lapp – Fairmont Junior High School and the Swing Choir
During Lapp’s tenure at Fairmont Junior High School, the choral program was comprised of four curricular choirs including a large 8th and 9th-grade mixed concert choir; an 8th grade girls choir; a large 7th-grade mixed choir; and a Swing Choir. There were also two non-curricular swing choirs, which rehearsed during lunch hours, one for
7th-grade students and one for 8th-grade students. Membership in the Fairmont Junior
High School Swing Choir varied between 25 and 35 vocalists during Lapp’s tenure at the school. In performances, the ensemble stood on two or three sections of four-step choral
267 Rich Lapp, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
217 risers in varied standing formations and wore coordinated outfits with the girls in a skirt and top and the boys in dress pants and a dress shirt with either a tie or suspenders (see fig. 10.2).268
Figure 10.2 The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1986 – Rich Lapp, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Auditions for the Swing Choir included an evaluation of each student’s vocal range, pitch accuracy, sight-reading, and part holding abilities. Lapp also had each student sing a preselected solo tune in order to determine whether they were musical or mechanical in their approach to singing. The work ethic the student had demonstrated in class the previous year was, however, the biggest factor in determining membership in the Fairmont
Junior High Swing Choir, according to Lapp. As per district policy, all members of the Swing
Choir were concurrently enrolled in the 9th-grade concert choir at Fairmont Junior High
School. A few area microphones amplified the choral ensemble and two dynamic
268 Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook, The Falcon, 1986, Boise, Idaho, 45.
218 microphones, usually Sure SM 58’s, were used to mike the group’s soloists. The Fairmont
Junior High School Swing Choir participated in the Fall, Holiday, Pre-Festival, and Pops choral concerts. They also performed in the Boise Valley community for parties and business functions throughout the year. They sang for adjudication purposes at the Boise
School District Junior High Large Group Festival and at a minimum of two vocal jazz festivals during the second semester.269
Beginning in November of 1987, the Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir also participated in the annual Boise School District Junior High Chamber Choir Festival. Lapp and his Boise School District colleague, Connie Branton, who was the choral director at
South and North Junior High Schools, founded the event in order to create a balance in the choral literature sung by the district’s junior high specialty ensembles. According to Lapp, at that time, vocal jazz singing was leading the way in the Boise junior high schools, “we were coming out of the Jerry Vevig era and the Linda Schmidt era was beginning and smaller ensemble singing focused on jazz not chamber music.” The first festival included all six of the district’s junior high school specialty ensembles including East Junior High (Rob
Newburn, director), North and South Junior Highs (Connie Branton, director), West Junior
High (Paul Olson, director), Hillside Junior High (John Galvan, director), and Fairmont
Junior High (Rich Lapp, director). The featured group for the festival was the Boise High
Expectations under the direction of Sue Hough-Block. 270
When Lapp arrived at Fairmont Junior High School, the Swing Choir (see fig. 10.3) had been performing jazz literature for over 14 years and he recalls that the 9th graders
269 Rich Lapp, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016. 270 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016.
219 were already “jazzers.” Lapp grew up singing barbershop music with his father and three brothers and was familiar with the close harmony that occurred in vocal jazz, but had no previous experience with the style prior to his arrival at the school. He remembers looking at a vocal jazz piece/chart for the first time and not knowing what the jazz articulations meant much less how to interpret them. Lapp never felt pressure from Jerry Vevig or Linda
Schmidt to do vocal jazz literature with the Swing Choir at Fairmont Junior High School. He chose to participate in vocal jazz education because he wanted his students to be successful when they matriculated to Capital High School and he was intrigued by the style. According to Lapp, at the beginning of his experience with the idiom, he asked his students questions.
He also observed Linda Schmidt work with the Capital Singers at Capital High School; and listened to recordings of vocal jazz ensembles.271
Figure 10.3. The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1985 – Rich Lapp, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
271 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
220 Rich Lapp – Vocal Jazz Education/ Festival Participation / Rhythm Section
When he first began listening to vocal jazz music, Lapp preferred listening to the professional vocal jazz ensembles like The Hi-Lo’s and the Singers Unlimited. He believes that getting the sounds of those ensembles initially into his head and ears helped him greatly, but he did not really know how to teach it. He could hear when something was right or wrong in the Swing Choir based on what was in his ear, but he did not know how to fix it. His lack of skill in the vocal jazz area prompted him to attend the University of Idaho for a Masters in Music Education degree under the guidance of the school’s vocal jazz director, Dan Bukvich. Lapp’s masters curriculum with Bukvitch included jazz arranging courses, jazz theory and ear training classes, and a jazz history class, in which Rich researched jazz performers, listened to jazz recordings, and wrote jazz discographies. Lapp learned a lot about jazz by attending, “The College of Dan Bukvich,” and applied all he learned to his teaching at Fairmont Junior High School.272
Lapp decided to attend the University of Idaho to study with Dan Bukvich while participating in The University of Idaho Jazz Festival with the Fairmont Junior High School
Swing Choir in February of 1985. He and the ensemble attended the event regularly from
1985 to 1990 and, according to Lapp, “we went there to win.” Of his early competitive nature Lapp recalls, “it was stupid, but that was a part of what I needed. I needed validation that what I was doing was the right thing.” Lapp and the Swing Choir also participated in the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival, a few times between 1985 and 1990. The festival was also competitive and Lapp recalls that they always strove for top honors in the junior high division with Northwood Junior High School from Spokane, WA (Shawn Wright,
272 Rich Lapp, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
221 director). Lapp felt like the determining factor between the ensembles was their soloists and rhythm section. He was of the opinion that most junior high groups sound the same because of the limitations of the age group and it often comes down to the creative aspects of the vocal solos and the rhythm section. “Some years you had a great drummer or a piano player that could solo well over the changes.”273
During Lapp’s tenure at Fairmont Junior High School, the accompanying ensemble for the Swing Choir consisted of a rhythm trio (piano, bass, and drums) with guitar added on occasion. Like many of the teachers named in this document, Lapp felt like he struggled with rhythm sections throughout his career. Early on, Lapp picked up techniques for working with his rhythm section anywhere he could and he recalls studying Frank
Mantooth’s book Voicings for Jazz Keyboard in order to teach his pianists how to voice jazz chords. Like Rob Newburn at East Junior High School, Lapp often brought in professional jazz players from the Boise community to work with his rhythm section. Jazz pianist Chuck
Smith was one of the players Lapp brought in to teach his pianists how to comp (using chords, countermelodies, and rhythms to support an improvised solo). According to Lapp,
Smith would often talk over both him and his students’ heads, when explaining the process of comping, and eventually he just had Smith write out accompaniment parts for the pianist to play. Lapp felt terrible about this, as he knew jazz was supposed to be creative and improvisatory, but as he puts it, “We had to put a chart on the stage and the piano player didn’t know what to do.”274
During the mid 80s, Boise State University sponsored a vocal jazz festival, which
Lapp and his choir from Fairmont Junior High School attended each year. At the Boise State
273 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016. 274 Rich Lapp, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
222 Vocal Jazz Festival, Lapp listened to and was influenced by, the ensembles lead by his fellow
Boise Valley vocal jazz educators; Rob Newburn, Linda Schmidt, Glen Grant, Paul Olson, and
Sue Block. According to Lapp, “I learned from hearing what they did, especially how they messed with their rhythm sections.” Dave Barduhn adjudicated the Fairmont Junior High
School Swing Choir at the Boise State University Vocal Jazz Festival early on in Lapp’s career at the school. He recalls that during the clinic, Barduhn taught him how to program a set of three tunes for a 20-minute set at a vocal jazz festival. Barduhn believed that (a) the first chart should show that you can swing, (b) the second chart should show that you can sing, and (c) the third chart should show that you can be creative. For the remainder of his vocal jazz teaching career, Lapp approached his vocal jazz festival programming with this format in mind.275
Rich Lapp – Vocal Jazz Arrangements and Vocal Improvisation
As Fairmont Junior and Capital Senior High Schools had been participating in vocal jazz ensemble singing since the early 1970s, former directors Bruce Walker, Cathy Gilk,
Linda Schmidt (Fairmont Junior High School), and Jerry Vevig (Capital High School) had collected and catalogued a significant number of vocal jazz arrangements in each school’s choral library. Lapp frequently examined both libraries and obtained much of the vocal jazz literature he performed with the Swing Choir from them. In order to perform many of the advanced arrangements, Lapp recalls having to rearrange and revoice them in order to make them “singable” for his junior high students. According to Lapp, Kirby Shaw wrote many accessible charts for junior high school students; “they weren’t terribly complex or
275 Dave Barduhn, oral interview by author, Pasco, Washington, April 22, 2017.
223 harmonically or rhythmically creative but through them you could dip your toe into vocal jazz, which I think was appropriate for the junior high level.” Lapp performed many of
Shaw’s arrangements with the Swing Choir and he believes that during the late 1980s,
Shaw along with Dave Barduhn, Dave Cross, and Kirk Marcy were the most frequently performed arrangers by educational vocal jazz ensembles from the Boise Valley.276
During Lapp’s tenure at Fairmont Junior High School, many of the vocal jazz arrangements interpreted by the Swing Choir featured sections for vocal improvisation. He always found it hard to devote the time necessary to do vocal improvisation because his passion was tuning the jazz chords sung by the choir. When teaching vocal improvisation,
Lapp played recordings of outstanding improvisational solos by professional jazz artists for his students. He also taught his students scales to use in their improvisations and used
Jamey Aebersold’s play-along recordings to practice scatting in class. Lapp recalls that, often, the students selected to perform vocal improvisations in the Fairmont Junior High
Swing Choir were naturals at it. Lapp taught at Fairmont Junior High School from the fall of
1984 to the spring of 1990 (see fig. 10.4) when he switched schools with Sue Hough-Block and became the choral director at Boise High School. Before Hough-Block took over the choral program at Boise High School in the fall of 1986, Bruce Walker (see fig. 10.5) had been at the school for the previous two years.277
276 Paul Olson, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 15, 2016. 277 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December14, 2016.
224
Figure 10.4. The Fairmont Junior High School Swing Choir (1990 – Rich Lapp, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Fig. 10.5. Bruce Walker - photo courtesy of the subject.
225 Bruce Walker - Boise High School (1984/1985 and 1985/1986)
After a long history of exclusively singing classical styles of choral literature, Boise
High School began participating in vocal jazz ensemble singing when Bruce Walker “retired from the fundraising business” and began teaching at the school in the fall of 1984. The numbers in the Boise High School choral program were low in the mid 1980s and District
Supervisor of Music Jerry Vevig hired Walker to build the program back up. When he arrived, the program included three curricular choirs: a 50-voice a cappella choir containing sophomore through senior men and junior and senior women, a 20-voice sophomore women’s training choir, and the school’s specialty ensemble, the Boise High
School Madrigal Singers. Walker added a jazz choir to the curriculum his first semester at the school in the hopes that it would attract more students into the program.278
The Boise High School Jazz Choir (see fig. 10.6) rehearsed before school each day during 0- hour period and the membership in the inaugural ensemble was around 30 students. For performances, the ensemble wore black pants and white tuxedo shirts with red suspenders and bow ties, and they stood on two or three sets of four-step choral risers in a mixed order. If the ensemble was amplified, two area microphones were used on the choir and two close proximity microphones were used for the soloists. The Boise High
School Jazz Choir performed in the Fall, Christmas, Pre-Festival, and Spring Choral concerts hosted by the choral program. They also sang for business parties and other events held in the Boise community, particularly during the holiday season, and traveled with the rest of the varsity choirs (a cappella choir & Madrigal Singers) on the spring tour.279
278 Boise High School Yearbook, 1984-1985 Courier, 1985, Boise, Idaho, 18-19. 279 Boise High School Yearbook, 1985-1986 Courier, 1986, Boise, Idaho, 30-32.
226
Fig. 10.6. The Boise High School Jazz Choir (1985 – Bruce Walker, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
During his second year at the school, Walker and his choral students changed the name of the Boise High School Madrigals Singers to Boise High Expectations and he expanded the repertoire performed by the group from madrigals and contemporary classical choral octavos to include pop and vocal jazz literature. The vocal jazz-type literature performed by the Boise High Jazz Choir and Boise High Expectations during
Walker’s tenure at the school included All of Me arranged by Kirby Shaw, Blues on the Run arranged by Brent Pierce, The More I See You and Loving You by Jack Kunz, and Winds of
Love by Scott Frederickson.280
The number of students participating the choral program at Boise High School doubled during Walker’s 2-year tenure at the school (19845/1985 – 1985/1986). He left
Boise High School in the spring of 1986 to teach at Treasure Valley Community College in
280 Boise High School Choirs, Spring Concert 1986, 1986, Dale Higinson Recording. Casette.
227 Ontario, OR. Throughout the remainder of the time period documented in this paper (1987-
1990), Walker hosted the Treasure Valley Community College Jazz Festival which was attended by many of the junior and senior high school vocal jazz ensembles from the Boise
Valley including Capital High School (Linda Schmidt, director), Borah High School (Glen
Grant, director), Meridian High School (Ted Totorica, director), East Junior High School
(Rob Newburn, director), West Junior High School (Paul Olson, director), and Fairmont
Junior High School (Rich Lapp, director). Walker finished his academic teaching career when he retired from Treasure Valley Community College in 1998. Sue Hough-Block (see fig. 10.7) replaced him at Boise High School in the fall of 1986.281
Fig. 10.7. Sue Hough-Bock - photo courtesy of the subject.
281 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016.
.
228 Sue Hough-Block – Boise High School (1986/1987 – 1989-1990)
In the fall of 1986, Susan Hough-Block replaced Bruce Walker at Boise High School.
Hough-Block had previously taught in the Boise School District at West Junior High School
(1972-1981) before moving to Albany, OR in the fall of 1981 to teach high school choral music. She returned to Boise in 1984 to get married and had been teaching in several elementary schools in Joint School District Number 2, when she agreed to replace Walker at
Boise High School. While at Boise High School, Hough-Block taught a music theory course and directed the four curricular choral ensembles which included: a 60-voice a cappella choir, which included sophomore through senior men and junior and senior women, a sophomore women’s choir numbering about 35, Boise High Expectations which contained between 24 and 30 students, and the Jazz Choir which contained around 20 students.282
Hough-Block continued Walker’s precedent of performing diverse literature with
Boise High Expectations (see fig. 10.8) and in 1988 the ensemble participated in the
Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival. She appreciated the event as the Boise High
Expectations could sing both their classical and vocal jazz repertoire at the festival due to the addition by Steve Baer of a concert choir competition day in 1986. Hough-Block and the
Boise High Expectations also participated annually in the Boise State University Vocal Jazz
Festival beginning in 1987.283
282 Boise High School Yearbook, 1986-1987 Courier, 1987, Boise, Idaho, 96 & 97. 283 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
229
Fig 10.8. The Boise High School High Expectations (1990 - Sue Hough-Block, director) pose in front of the Capital building - photo courtesy of the subject.
Each year, while attending the festival, she heard and was influenced by her Boise
School District colleague and friend Linda Schmidt and her group the Capital Singers from
Capital High School. Hough-Block states, “The visual of her group was amazing as they all looked comfortable and moved to the music together. Her group also connected with the audience, which drew you into their singing.” Hough-Block was impressed that Schmidt could also step away from the Capital Singers and they would be fine without her directing and the tone quality of the vocal ensemble was so beautiful that, “sometimes I would listen to the ballads and think they could be a professional group.” The interplay between the vocalists and the trio in the Capital Singers also impressed Hough-Block who remarked, “it was like they were one.”284
The vocal jazz-type literature performed by the Boise High Jazz Choir and Boise
High Expectations during Hough-Block’s tenure at the school included Almost Like Being In
284 Sue Hough-Block, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December14, 2016.
230 Love arranged by Dave Barduhn, Back In Your Own Backyard arranged by Chuck Cassey,
Bourée For Bach and Fugue Sandwich arranged by Manners, I’ll Be Seeing You arranged by
Phil Mattson, Love Is Just Around the Corner arranged by Phil Mattson, Moonglow arranged by Teena Chinn, My Funny Valentine arranged by Kirby Shaw, New Orleans arranged by
Dave Barduhn, Old Friends arranged by Linda Schueffle, Our Day Will Come arranged by
Teena Chinn, When I Fall In Love arranged by Kirby Shaw, and You Made Me Love You arranged by Gene Puerling. In order to familiarize students in the ensembles with a new vocal jazz type arrangement, Hough Block would play recordings of other ensembles interpreting the same arrangement for them.285
Often in rehearsals, Hough-Block and the students in her Boise High School vocal jazz type ensembles determined where to put proper vocal jazz effects (fall-offs, smears, doits, shakes, etc.) in their vocal jazz interpretations by recording themselves trying different effects and then listening to how they sounded. Throughout her 4-year tenure at
Boise High School, Hough-Block grew as a vocal jazz educator, learning as much from her students as she did from her colleagues and by listening to jazz. Hough-Block taught at
Boise High School from the fall of 1986 through the spring of 1990, when she and Rich
Lapp switched positions and she took over the choral program at Fairmont Junior High
School. While Boise High School was experiencing many changes in the late 1980s, so was
Meridian High School in neighboring Joint School District Number 2.286
285 Boise High School Choirs, Spring Concert 1987, 1987, Don Cedstrum Custom Recording, Cassette. 286 Rich Lapp, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
231
Fig. 10.9. Vern Swain - photo courtesy of the subject.
Vern Swain – Meridian High School (1985/1986 and 1986/1987)
After leaving the Boise School District and Borah High School in the spring of 1978 to become a solo country artist, Vern Swain (see fig 10.9) returned to the Boise Valley in the fall of 1985 to replace Angela Wardella as choral director at Meridian High School in
Joint School District Number 2. The choral program at Meridian High School had four curricular choirs when he arrived: an 80- mixed a cappella choir consisting of junior and senior students, a 60 voice sophomore women’s choir, a 25 voice sophomore men’s choir, and The New Dimensions (see fig. 10.10).287
287 Meridian High School Yearbook, Man Ha Sa 1986 – Life’s Crossroads, 1986, Meridian, Idaho, 64-69. .
232 By the late 80s, many of the vocal jazz festivals taking place in the northwest region had increased the student number limit allowed on festival performance stages from 24 to
28 vocalists. As a result, the annual membership in the New Dimensions was between 24 and 28 vocalists. In performances, the ensemble dressed in a black and white color scheme often with an accent color of some kind and they stood on two or three sets of four-step choral risers in a mixed order. If the ensemble was amplified, two area microphones were used on the choir and two close proximity microphones were used for the soloists.288
Fig. 10.10. The Meridian High School New Dimensions (1986 - Vern Swain, director) in performance - photo courtesy of the subject.
During Swain’s tenure at the school (1985/1986 & 1986/1987), The New
Dimensions performed at the Fall, Christmas, and Spring choral concerts, they sang for
288 Meridian High School Yearbook, Man Ha Sa 1987 Volume 66 – Out Of The Blue, 1987, Meridian, Idaho, 156-161. .
233 business parties and other events held in the Boise Valley throughout the year, and participated in the District III/Boise State University Vocal Jazz Festival, the Lionel Hampton
Jazz Festival, the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival, and the Northwest Vocal
Jazz Festival during the second semester. Under the direction of Swain, The New
Dimensions were successful at the vocal jazz festivals they attended, placing in the AAAA
(largest school population) division at both the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and the
Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival.289
Often the New Dimensions competed against the Capital Singers in festivals held throughout the northwest region and Swain felt like Linda Schmidt, “took the Capital
Singers to a higher level.” He believed that under her direction, the ensemble was authentic in their interpretations and he was impressed by the amount of vocal improvisation that occurred in their performances. The vocal jazz arrangements Swain performed with the
Meridian High School New Dimensions between 1985 and 1987 included a lift of the
Manhattan Transfer tune Jeanine, Dave Barduhn’s arrangements of Why Did I Choose You? and There Will Never Be Another You, and Hal Malcolm’s Oh What A Beautiful Morning.
Swain had been at Meridian High School for 2 years (1985/1986 - 1986/1987) when he accepted an offer to serve as the choral director at his alma mater, Evanston High School in
Evanston, WY. Swain left Meridian High School in the spring of 1987 and Ted Totorica replaced him in the fall of the same year.290
289 Laurel Jean Tangen-Foster, “The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and the Continuance of the Jazz Legacy - A Qualitative Study,” (PhD diss., University of Idaho, 1996), 139. 290 Vern Swain, oral interview by author, Evanston, Wyoming, December 13, 2016.
234 CHAPTER ELEVEN
CENTENNIAL AND MERIDIAN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS – BARB OLDENBURG AND TED
TOTORICA, DIRECTORS
Fig. 11.1. Centennial High School – photo courtesy of the subject.
In 1986, the Meridian community finally passed a school bond and Joint School
District Number 2 built and opened their second high school Centennial High School (see fig. 11.1), in the fall of 1987. The school was located within the Boise city limits, just north of Capital High School and Barb Oldenburg (see fig. 11.2) who had been a former student of
Vern Swain’s at Borah High School was the school’s first choral director. Ted Totorica, another Borah High School alumnus, also began working for Joint School District Number 2 in the fall of 1987 when he replaced Swain at Meridian High School. Totorica and
Oldenburg worked well together during this time of expansion, founding a district choral library, housed at Meridian High School, similar to the one in the Boise School District.291
291 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
235
Fig. 11.2. Barb Oldenburg -photo courtesy of the subject.
Barb Oldenburg – Early Biography
Barb Oldenburg was born on May 31, 1956 in Reseda, California and her family relocated to Boise, Idaho when she was 10 years old. Oldenburg’s parents were both musical and encouraged their six children to participate in music making. Oldenburg recalls that during church services at Southminster United Presbyterian church in Boise, her family would sit and sing together providing all of the harmony parts for the hymns sung by the congregation. Oldenburg attended McKinley Elementary School in the Boise Public
School District for 5th and 6th grades. At McKinley, Oldenburg experienced her first public school music specialist, Jenny Smith who was also her 5th grade classroom teacher.292
292 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
236 From age 6 through 12, Oldenburg took private piano lessons. She began 5 years of private voice study with Kathryn Lilly when she was 13. In junior high school, Oldenburg was an active participant in the choral program lead by Ron Jennings (1969), Howard Lowe
(1970), and Connie White (1971) at West Junior High School in Boise. Of the three, Lowe had the greatest impact on Oldenburg and she recalls singing high quality classical literature that was accessible for junior high schools under his leadership. Lowe left West
Junior High School to become the choral director at Boise High School, where he directed their specialty ensemble the Boise High School Madrigal Singers, in 1970. In the fall of
1971, Oldenburg started at Borah High School where she continued to participate in choral singing. Her sophomore year, she sang in the Concert Choir under the direction of Dale Ball, and in her junior and senior years she sang in the a cappella choir and the Swing Choir under the direction of Vern Swain.293
According to Oldenburg, her first year in the Swing Choir, the ensemble sang arrangements of pop tunes like A Horse with No Name, Eleanor Rigby, and Dead Skunk in the
Middle of the Road at the Reno International Jazz Festival in spring of 1973. At the festival,
Oldenburg and Swain heard the Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Roosevelt High School under the direction of Waldo King for the first time. Oldenburg recalls the captivating way the ensemble moved to their music and was particularly impressed with their soloists’ ability to scat sing. At that time, there weren’t any vocal jazz ensembles in the Boise Valley area attempting vocal improvisation and after hearing the Roosevelt ensemble at the Reno
International Jazz Festival, Vern Swain immediately began attempting scat singing with the members of the Borah High School Swing Choir. Oldenburg recalls that Swain did not have
293 West Junior High School Yearbook, Montesa 71, 1971, Boise, Idaho, 29.
237 a particular method for approaching vocal improvisation but they did a lot of experimentation and listening in class. She loved the experience of scat singing even though it was a struggle at times and appreciates the fact that Vern Swain provided the opportunity for her to scat.294
Her senior year of high school (1974), the Borah High School Swing Choir was renamed the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (see fig. 11.3) and Oldenburg noticed a change in the vocal literature that Swain selected for the group to perform as arrangements of Four Freshmen and Stan Kenton Big Band tunes replaced the pop tunes they had sung the previous spring at the Reno International Jazz Festival. Swain also began exposing his students in the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble to the great jazz artists by playing their recordings in the choir room throughout the school day.295
Fig. 11.3. The Borah High School Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble (1974 -Vern Swain, director). Barb Oldenburg is the first female to the left on the third riser row - photo courtesy of the subject.
294 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016. 295 Vern Swain, oral interview by author, Evanston, Wyoming. December 13, 2016.
238 Oldenburg recalls that the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble attended the
Inland Jazz Festival for the first time in February of 1974. They took first place in the AAAA division at the festival, whose title changed to the University of Idaho Jazz Festival the following year. In the spring of 1974, the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble also participated in their first Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival held at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, OR. At the festival, Oldenburg again had the pleasure of hearing the Roosevelt
High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Seattle, WA. Oldenburg believes that what Waldo
King and his ensemble were doing musically felt very authentic to the jazz idiom compared to the early pop groups from the Boise Valley who were first attempting to sing in the vocal jazz style. Oldenburg graduated from Borah High School in the spring of 1974, but continued to follow Swain and the Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble as her younger sister Sally sang in the group in 1977 and 1978. Oldenburg believes that the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble continued to grow and get more authentic in their performance of jazz throughout Swain’s tenure at the school.296
Barb Oldenburg – Collegiate Years and Early Teaching
After graduating from Borah High School, Oldenburg enrolled at Boise State
University in Boise, ID in the fall of 1974. While attending the university, she studied private voice with Bill Taylor and choral music with Dr. Wilbur D. Elliot and Dr. Jerry
Schrader. Oldenburg feels that the choral faculty at Boise State University did not think that vocal jazz was a legitimate style of music, and hence, there was not a vocal jazz ensemble offered at the university during her matriculation at the college. Oldenburg believes to this day that the lack of an opportunity to study the jazz idiom hampered her ability to teach it.
296 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 74, 1974, Boise, Idaho, 92-93 &131.
239 While the choral program at Boise State University did not include a jazz choir, it did include three classical choral ensembles; (a) The University Singers, a mixed voiced ensemble, open to all university students, (b) The Meistersingers, a 40-voice, select mixed ensemble, containing both music and nonmusic majors, and (c) the Chorale, a select mixed voiced ensemble of 25 singers who were all music majors. Oldenburg participated in all three ensembles during her attendance at Boise State University. After completing her student teaching with Jerry Higginson at Lowell Scott Junior High in Joint School District
Number 2, Oldenburg graduated from Boise State University with a BM in music education in the spring of 1979 and accepted a teaching position in the Boise Public School District.297
Oldenburg replaced Sue Hough-Block at West Junior High School for the fall semester of the 1979/1980 school year. Hough took the semester off to rest her voice as she had been experiencing vocal issues. When Hough-Block returned for the spring semester, Oldenburg taught at two different elementary schools in the Boise School District from the spring of 1980 to the spring of 1981. She longed to teach at the secondary level and in the fall of 1981 accepted a teaching position 75 miles northeast of Boise, at Vail High
School in Vail, OR. At the time, Oldenburg taught in the Vail community the city’s population was 1,200 and the high school population was around 200 students.298
At Vail High School, Oldenburg served as the yearbook advisor and taught swing choir (see figs. 11.4 and 11.5), concert choir, music appreciation, drama, and French.
According to Oldenburg, the Vocal Jazz Choir from Vail High School participated in the
Nyssa Vocal Jazz Festival and the Boise State University Vocal Jazz Festival, where they performed many arrangements by Kenny Kraintz. (see fig. 11.6) Barb favored
297 Boise State University Yearbook, “1975 Les Bois,” 1975, Boise, Idaho, 145. 298 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
240 arrangements by Kraintz as she found them to be very accessible for the rural students she taught in Vail. Oldenburg taught at Vail High School for 6 years from the fall of 1982 through the spring of 1987, when she resigned in order to accept the choral position at newly built Centennial High School in Boise, ID.299
Fig. 11.4. The Vale High School Swing Choir (1982 – Barb Oldenburg, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
Fig. 11.5. The Vale High School Swing Choir (1984 – Barb Oldenburg, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
299 Vail High School Yearbook, The Viking, 1984, Vail, Oregon, 71.
241
Fig. 11.6. Kenny Kraintz - photo courtesy of the subject.
Barb Oldenburg – Centennial High School and the Jazz Choir / Vocal Jazz Listening
Influences / Festivals and Literature
When Centennial High School opened in the fall of 1987, the choral program consisted of four ensembles an nonauditioned women’s choir consisting of 10th through
12th graders; an nonauditioned mixed concert choir consisting of 9th through 12th grade students; an auditioned mixed a cappella choir containing junior and senior students; and a mixed jazz choir containing junior and senior students. Each year that Oldenburg taught at
Centennial High School (1987/1988 – 1990/1991) she selected between 20 and 24 vocalists for membership in Centennial High School Jazz Choir. The ensemble wore coordinated outfits selected by the ensemble’s officers, and approved by Oldenburg (see fig. 11.7.). She recalls that in her first year the girls wore homemade dresses that were in the school’s colors (maroon & silver). In performances, the group stood on two or three
242 sections of four-step choral risers in varied standing formations. If the ensemble was amplified a few area microphones were used for the choir and a couple of solo microphones were used for the group’s soloists.300
Fig. 11.7. The inaugural Centennial High School Jazz Choir (1988, Barb Oldenburg, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
When selecting students for the ensemble, Oldenburg looked for those with a strong musical ear and a pleasant vocal tone quality who had demonstrated dedication and an ability to get along in a group setting while singing in the training choirs at the school. The
Centennial High School Jazz Choir performed at the Fall, Christmas, and Spring choral concerts, sang at business and organizational parties held in the Boise and Meridian communities throughout the year, particularly during the Christmas season, and participated in two vocal jazz ensemble festivals held during the second semester. The
300 Centennial High School Yearbook, Sentinel, 1987, Boise, Idaho, 67-69.
243 accompanying ensemble for the Centennial High School Jazz Choir was a standard jazz trio comprised of piano, bass, and drums. Oldenburg credits former colleague Terry Sights at
Vail High School (Vail, OR) for teaching her to have apprentice players for each of the instrument in the combo in order for the students to mentor and teach each other.301
Oldenburg recalls that when Centennial High School opened in the fall of 1987 there was an already an expectation amongst the students and their parents that the Centennial
High Jazz Choir would be participating in vocal jazz festivals so, they attended the Lionel
Hampton Jazz Festival, the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival, and the Boise
State University Vocal Jazz Festival. According to Oldenburg, during the late 1980s
“northwest vocal jazz gurus,” Dave Barduhn, Waldo King, and Dave Cross, served as adjudicators at many of the vocal jazz festivals she attended with the Centennial High
School Jazz Choir and she found the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival more friendly and accessible for her ensemble than the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.302
At vocal jazz festivals, Oldenburg heard and received inspiration from many fine vocal jazz ensembles with one of her favorites being the Capital Singers from Capital High
School. She was impressed with what Linda Schmidt consistently achieved with her ensembles comparing them to Waldo King and his Vocal Jazz Ensemble from Roosevelt
High School in terms of how true to the jazz idiom they were. Oldenburg also recalls that during the late 1980s, Schmidt served as the vocal jazz mentor for many outstanding future choral music educators.303
301 Barb Oldenburg, oral interiview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016. 302 Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Program, Columbia Basin College, Pasco, Washington, 1987. 303 Barb Oldenburg, oral interiview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016
244 Throughout her career as a vocal jazz student and educator, Barb Oldenburg was a fan of professional vocal jazz solo artists Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, as well as the professional vocal jazz ensemble, Singers Unlimited. Oldenburg attempted to perform several of the arrangements crafted by Gene Puerling (see fig. 11.8) for the Singers
Unlimited with the Centennial High School Vocal Jazz Choir and recalls how difficult they were to execute with a high school ensemble. Oldenburg often ordered her vocal jazz charts for the Centennial High School Jazz Choir after hearing them either on a publisher’s marketing compact disc or at a vocal jazz festival. She admitted, however, that she also purchased arrangements blindly based strictly on the reputation of the arranger’s previous vocal jazz canon.304
Fig. 11.8. An advertisement for Gene Puerling arrangements published by Shawnee Press - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
304 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
245 Oldenburg recalls that Dave Barduhn, Dave Cross, Kenny Kraintz, and Kirby Shaw, were the most performed vocal jazz arrangers by ensembles in the Boise Valley during her tenure at Centennial High School. Several of the arrangements performed by the Centennial
High School Jazz Choir included sections for vocal improvisation. In order to teach her students to scat sing, Oldenburg played them recordings of professional jazz artists improvising and taught them to recognize, steal, and use the riffs of the great scatters in their own vocal improvisations. She also used exercises from Kirby Shaw’s book Vocal Jazz
Style (see fig. 11.9) to acquaint her students with the language and style of scat singing.305
Fig. 11.9. An advertisement for Kirby Shaw’s book Vocal Jazz Style - photo courtesy of the NAJE Educator Journal.
305 Barb Oldenburg, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 20, 2016.
246 In the fall of 1991, after 4 years of teaching, Oldenburg moved from Centennial High School to Lake Hazel Middle School, which was also in Joint School District Number 2. She was replaced at Centennial High School by Dale Bozzett who served as choral director at
Centennial High School for the academic year 1991/1992. During Oldenburg’s tenure at
Centennial High School, Ted Totorica (see fig. 11.10) taught at neighboring Meridian High
School. Totorica had been a student of Sue Hough-Block and Glen Grant while attending
West Junior and Borah Senior High in the Boise School District and had just finished student teaching with Linda Schmidt at Capital High School before taking over the leadership of the New Dimensions at Meridian High School.306
Fig. 11.10. Ted Totorica - photo courtesy of the subject.
306 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
247 Ted Totorica – Early Biography
Totorica was born on March 7, 1963 in Boise, ID to immigrant parents from the
Basque country in Spain. Although untrained, both of his parents enjoyed music and singing. For entertainment, his mother often harmonized on folksongs with her friends in the town of Guernica and his father started singing by first howling at the moon to relieve boredom while sheepherding alone, laughs Totorica. His mother insisted that her children study the piano and Totorica took 2 years of lessons on the instrument in his early teenage years. Totorica began participating in vocal jazz ensemble education while he was a student at West Junior (1976-1978) and Borah Senior (1979-1981) in the Boise Public School
District.307
At West Junior High, he sang for Sue Hough-Block in the Swing Choir and recalls performing the Alfred Burt Carols along with other music largely in the “pop” genre during his time in the ensemble. While attending Borah High School, he sang in the Contemporary
Directions Vocal Ensemble during the first 2 years of Glen Grant’s tenure at the school.
Under Grant’s tutelage, Totorica was first exposed to vocal jazz harmonies when the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble practiced and performed several Singers
Unlimited tunes arranged by Gene Puerling. It was while singing for Grant in the
Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble that Totorica heard the Capital Singers from neighboring Capital High School for the first time and recalls that the Jerry Vevig lead ensemble set the standard for vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley in the early
1980s. While attending Borah High School, Totorica began listening to the popular vocal jazz group, Manhattan Transfer on a regular basis and purchasing recordings of early
307 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
248 professional vocal jazz ensembles the Ink Spots and the Hi-Lo’s at local thrift shops in
Boise. According to Totorica, he started listening to Chick Corea, Mel Tormé, Ella Fitzgerald, and other professional jazz artists and ensembles later on in his vocal jazz development.308
Totorica graduated from Borah High School in the spring of 1981 and matriculated at Boise State University in the fall of the same year. At that time, the university did not offer any training in vocal jazz ensemble techniques or have a vocal jazz ensemble to participate in, but they did host the District III Vocal Jazz Festival. The event, which began sometime in the early 1980s, occurred during the beginning of February each year and all of the junior and senior high school vocal jazz groups from the Boise Valley attended. At the non-competitive festival, ensembles sang for each other and a panel of judges provided written and/or recorded feedback for each ensemble. After each ensemble’s performance, they took part in a private clinic with one of the illustrious adjudicators. The written and oral feedback provided at the festival was important to many of the participating directors and their ensembles, as they would be traveling to the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival to compete at the end of February. During the event, Boise State University students served as guides for the high school ensembles and Totorica recalls serving as a guide at the festival from 1982 through 1984. Sometime in the mid 1980s, the Idaho District 3 Music Educators relinquished control of the festival completely to Boise State University and it became known as the Boise State University Vocal Jazz Festival thereafter.309
In the fall of 1985, Totorica student taught at Capital High School under the tutelage of Linda Schmidt. Throughout his study with Schmidt he marveled at her ability to manipulate and reconstruct a vocal jazz chart so that it was unique to the Capital Singers,
308 Borah High School Yearbook, Safari, 1981, Boise, Idaho, 156. 309 Rob Newburn, oral interview by author, Kuna, Idaho, December 16, 2016.
249 and he credits her for teaching him the creative parts of vocal jazz ensemble education including improvisation and how to work with soloists. Schmidt and Totorica would maintain a close collegial relationship throughout the remainder of their music teaching careers in the Boise Valley. Totorica graduated from Boise State University in the spring of
1986 with a BA in Music Education degree and in the fall of 1987, he began teaching choral music at Meridian High School in Joint School District Number 2.310
Ted Totorica – Meridian High School and the New Dimensions
Totorica followed Vern Swain at Meridian High School in the inaugural year of
Centennial High School and the opening of the second high school in Joint School District
Number 2 greatly impacted the enrollment in the Meridian High School choral program.
Totorica inherited a program consisting of three ensembles; an a cappella choir of 12 to 15 girls, a 9th grade choir of about 30 female voices; and the 20 voice New Dimensions which included the only 8 men involved in the choral program at Meridian High School in the fall of 1987. During Totorica’s tenure at Meridian High School (1987-1991), the membership of the New Dimensions averaged between 20 and 30 students. In performances, the ensemble wore uniform/coordinated outfits and stood on two or three sets of four step choral risers
(see fig. 11.11). Their standing formation often was mixed (boy/girl/boy/girl) and if the group was amplified, two area microphones were used for the vocal ensemble and one or two dynamic microphones for the soloists.311
310 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016. 311 Meridian High School Yearbook, Mana Ha Sa 1988 Volume 67 – Transformation, 1988, Meridian, Idaho, 98-99 & 102-103.
250
Figure 11.11. The New Dimensions (1988 – Ted Totorica, director) in concert - photo courtesy of the subject.
According to Totorica, a student’s attitude was at the top of his hierarchy of attributes, musical or nonmusical, when determining membership in the New Dimensions.
He also favored students who had a pleasant vocal quality as well as a strong sense of pitch and intonation. Auditions for the ensemble consisted of (a) singing of scales (major and minor) to determine the student’s range, (b) a sight-reading exercise to see if the student could read music, (c) a series of five note pitch recall exercises to test the student’s musical ear, and (d) the singing of the National Anthem in order for the student’s vocal quality and musicality to be heard and reviewed. The New Dimensions performed at the Fall,
Christmas, Pre-Festival, and Spring choral concerts. They sang for many business and organizational parties held in the Boise and Meridian communities throughout the year,
251 took an annual spring tour with the a cappella choir, and participated in two vocal jazz ensemble festivals during the second semester of the school year.312
Under the tutelage of Totorica, the New Dimensions sang a combination of vocal jazz literature and madrigals. Often, he would program full sets of a cappella music (a cappella vocal jazz ballads & madrigals) for the many performances the ensemble was giving in the
Boise and Meridian communities in order to avoid set up and tear down of a sound system and rhythm section equipment. During Totorica’s tenure at Meridian High School, the accompanying group for the New Dimesions included piano, bass, drums, and guitar, with other instruments (conga & saxophone) added on occasion. Totorica credits Linda Schmidt for teaching him how to work with a rhythm section while he was her intern at Capital High
School in the fall of 1985. When beginning a new vocal jazz arrangement, he would play recordings of the chart for the combo in order to provide them with an idea of how the tune should go. He also recalls bringing in professional jazz players from the Boise community such as saxophonist Sandon Mayhew and bassist Nate Jenson to work with his combos.313
Ted Totorica – Vocal Jazz Festivals/Literature/Rehearsal and Improvisational
Techniques
From 1987 through 1990, Totorica and the New Dimensions (see figs. 11.12) participated in the Boise State University Vocal Jazz Festival, formerly The District III Vocal
Jazz Festival (1988-1990), the Edmonds Community College Soundsation Vocal Jazz Festival
(1989), the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival (1990) formerly known as the University of Idaho
Jazz Festival, and the Treasure Valley Community College Vocal Jazz Festival run by Bruce
312 Meridian High School Yearbook, Man Ha Sa 1989 Volume 68 – Warrior Spectrum, 1989, 50 & 51. 313 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
252 Walker. At these vocal jazz festivals, Ted Totorica learned about vocal jazz literature by listening to the performances of other ensembles. After the festival had concluded, he would acquire the arrangements he heard and liked by either (a) ordering them through an arranger or publishing company, or (b) contacting the director of the ensemble he heard perform the arrangement at the festival and asking them for the arrangement. During
Totorica’s tenure at Meridian High School, the New Dimensions also participated in a couple of Heritage Music Festivals hosted by World Strides Company. He recalls the adjudicators at these events were generally more “pop” oriented than “jazz” and the feedback he and the ensemble received was very different than that received at vocal jazz festivals in the northwest region.314
Figure 11.12. The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1989 - Ted Totorica, director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
314 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
253 According to Totorica, when programming a set for a vocal jazz festival he always tried to (a) start with an exciting opener, (b) sing a ballad, preferably a cappella, to clean out the ears of the audience, and (c) close with something really up-beat and exciting.
When he first started teaching at Meridian High School, Totorica recalls that it was very difficult to find great vocal jazz arrangements that were accessible to high school vocal jazz choirs. The New Dimensions performed a few published vocal jazz arrangements by Gene
Puerling and Phil Mattson during his 3-year tenure at the school and although he liked their arrangements, he had to alter many of the voicings in order to make them singable by the ensemble. Totorica often consulted with, and obtained recommended vocal jazz literature from, his mentor Linda Schmidt at Capital High School. Schmidt also provided Totorica with listening examples of the arrangements he would be performing with the New Dimensions from her extensive vocal jazz listening library at Capital High School. Often the Capital
Singers were the group on/in the listening example as Totorica performed many vocal jazz charts that Schmidt had previously performed with her ensemble.315
Ted Totorica also attended several conventions held by the American Choral
Director’s Association (ACDA) and the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) organizations during his time at Meridian High School. At these conventions, he often purchased recordings of professional, collegiate, and high school vocal jazz ensembles from
DJ Records (see fig. 11.13), a company owned and run by former vocal jazz educator Doug
Anderson from McMinville High School in McMinville, OR. Totorica found the recordings available through DJ Records to be an invaluable resource throughout his early vocal jazz education in the Boise Valley and he often used them when teaching his students to
315 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016.
254 improvise in the vocal jazz arrangements performed by the New Dimensions. In addition to listening to recordings of the great professional jazz improvisors in class, Totorica hosted an improvisation lunch session in the Meridian High School choir room once a week in order to teach his students to scat sing. He recalls that he did a lot of call and response
(mimicking) exercises with the students.316
Fig. 11.13. An ad for DJ Records - photo courtesy of the subject.
Totorica wanted his students to understand the form and hear the chord changes of the tune(s) they were improvising on in the New Dimensions. When teaching form he, (a) wrote the chord progression on the board for the students, (b) had the students sing
316 Linda Schmidt, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 9, 2016.
255 through the root progression of the form several times using solfege syllables and (c) had the students arpeggiate each chord in the progression several times using solfege syllables.
He recalls that this process was a challenge when they sang tunes with more complicated chord changes but he believed it was an effective way of getting the form of the song in their ears and lead them to appropriate note choices in their scat singing. In addition to their work at Meridian High School, Totorica recalls that the New Dimensions joined other vocal jazz ensembles from the Boise valley to work on improvisation at Capital High School, as Linda Schmidt and the Capital Singers hosted a scatting circle each month.317
Ted Totorica taught at Meridian High School for three academic years from
1987/1988 through 1989/1990. When he departed the school the choral program consisted of an eighty-voice a cappella choir; a seventy voice treble choir; a 9th grade training choir of about fifty voices; and the New Dimensions. Totorica left Meridian High
School in the spring of 1990 to pursue a Masters degree in choral conducting at the
University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT. He returned to Boise in the fall of 1992 to teach at his alma mater when he replaced his former teacher Glen Grant as choral director at Borah
High School.318
317 Ted Totorica, oral interview by author, Boise, Idaho, December 19, 2016. 318 Meridian High School Yearbook, Man Ha Sa 1990 Volume 69 – Only You Make The Difference, 1990, 152-154.
256
Figure 11.14. The New Dimensions from Meridian High School (1990 -Ted Totorica, Director) - photo courtesy of the subject.
257 CHAPTER 12
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
This study documents and presents in historical perspective the establishment, growth, and development of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the public schools of the Boise valley, in Southwestern Idaho, from it’s inception through the 1989 – 1990 academic year. The following research questions guided the study:
1. When did vocal jazz ensemble singing begin to appear in the Boise Valley region, what preceded vocal jazz singing in the public schools of the region, and what were the circumstances that lead to the growth of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the region?
2. Who were the teachers of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley (inception – 1990), where did they teach, and what was their musical and educational background?
3. Who were the individual vocal jazz educators and professional artists/groups that had an impact on the directors of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley, and how did these individuals impact the vocal jazz ensemble singing instructors of the region?
4. What vocal jazz themed festivals/events were the directors and ensembles from the Boise Valley attending, what were the logistics of the events, and what were the vocal jazz specific pedagogical advancements learned by choral educators of the region at these events? How did these festivals/events lead to the advancement of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley?
5. What was the physical make-up, choral sound/tone, and yearly logistical structure of a choral ensemble singing in a vocal jazz style from the Boise Valley region (inception – 1990)?
6. What were some of the specific vocal jazz rehearsal techniques and pedagogical tools used by the teachers of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley (inception-1990)? Where did they learn said techniques and acquire said materials?
258 When did vocal jazz ensemble singing begin to appear in the Boise Valley region, what preceded vocal jazz singing in the public schools of the region, and what were the circumstances that lead to the growth of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the region?
Vocal jazz ensemble singing began to appear in the Boise Valley in the early 1970s when Jerry Vevig and the Capital Singers from Capital High School and Bruce Walker and the Fairmont Swing Choir from Fairmont Junior High School began participating in vocal jazz festivals held in the northwestern region of the United States. Prior to the practice and performance of vocal jazz ensemble style literature and singing, the groups from the Boise valley sang madrigals and a variety of other popular styles of music from the late 60s/early
70s, including swing, pop, folk, and Christian/rock music. Vocal jazz festivals provided a platform for choral directors to feature their ensembles and receive accolades on behalf of their institutions. As more high school choral directors from the Boise valley began to compete in festivals, junior high directors in the area felt the need to teach their students vocal jazz style and began participating in the vocal jazz movement as well.
Who were the teachers of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley (inception –
1990), where did they teach, and what was their musical and educational background?
The 17 educators who participated in the vocal jazz ensemble singing movement in the Boise Valley from its inception through the 1990 academic year were: Jerry Vevig,
Bruce Walker, Jerry Sanford, Vern Swain, Sue Hough-Block, Lonnie Cline, Moyle Brown, Rob
Newburn, Cathy Gilk , Glen Grant, Linda Schmidt, Quinn Van Paepeghem, Royce Mitchell,
Paul Olson, Rich Lapp, Ted Totorica, and Barb Oldenburg. They taught at several schools over several years. (see Table 1).
259 Table 12.1.
Alphabetical List of Early Vocal Jazz Educators in The Boise Valley School(s) (Including Teaching Details)
Educator School (s) Director Taught At Years Taught Moyle Brown New Plymouth High School 1954-1990 Lonnie Cline East Junior High School 1972-1973 Meridian High School 1973-1977 Mountain Home High School 1978-1981 Cathy Gilk Fairmont Junior High School 1977-1980 Glen Grant Hillside Junior High School 1976-1977 Borah High School 1979-1992 Sue Hough - Block West Junior High School 1972-1981 Boise High School 1986-1990 Rich Lapp Fairmont Junior High School 1984-1990 Royce Mitchell Capital High School 1983-1984 Rob Newburn East Junior High School 1976-1992 Barb Oldenberg Centennial High School 1987-1991 Paul Olson West Junior High School 1981-2014 Jerry Sanford Hillside Junior High School 1970-1976 Linda Schmidt Kuna High School 1979-1980 Fairmont Junior High School 1980-1984 Capital High School 1984-2006 Vern Swain Borah High School 1972-1978 Meridian High School 1985-1987 Ted Totorica Meridian High School 1987-1990 Quin VanPaepeghem Meridian High School 1980-1984 Jerry Vevig Capital High School 1967-1983 Bruce Walker Fairmont Junior High 1968-1974 Lowell Scott Junior High School 1975-1977 Meridian High School 1977-1980 Boise High School 1984-1986
Specific musical and educational backgrounds of directors Jerry Vevig, Bruce
Walker, Vern Swain, Sue Hough-Block, Lonnie Cline, Moyle Brown, Rob Newburn, Cathy
Gilk, Glen Grant, Linda Schmidt, Quinn Van Paepeghem, Paul Olson, Rich Lapp, Ted
Totorica, and Barb Oldenburg are located in the narrative.
Who were the individual vocal jazz educators and professional artists/groups that had an impact on the directors of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley, and how did these individuals impact the vocal jazz ensemble singing instructors of the region?
260 The early vocal jazz educators in the Boise Valley were mentored by many of the founding fathers, educators, and arrangers, of the vocal jazz movement in the greater northwest region including Hal Malcolm, Waldo King, Frank Demiero, Phil Mattson, Jack
Kunz, Kenny Kraintz, Dave Cross, Doug Anderson, Dan Bukvich, Dave Cazier, and Kirk
Marcy. The early vocal jazz educators of the Boise Valley also influenced each other. Jerry
Vevig, Linda Schmidt, Lonnie Cline, Rich Lapp, Rob Newburn, Vern Swain, Sue Hough-Block,
Glen Grant, and Paul Olson were all named as an influence at least once during the research process. The specific impact these mentorships had is discussed in the narrative. Table 2 below presents the names of the vocal jazz educators who were named as mentors by the early vocal jazz ensemble educators from the Boise Valley from it’s inception through the academic year 1990. It also includes the number of times the mentor was cited and the names of the Boise Valley educators who named them as a mentor.
Table 12.2.
Vocal Jazz Mentors Who Had an Impact on Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Educators
Vocal Jazz Mentor Name Number of Times Cited by the Following Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Cited Educators Dave Barduhn 8 Vevig, Cline, Walker, Newburn, Grant, Schmidt, Olson, Lapp Hal Malcolm 6 Vevig, Swain, Cline, Walker, VanPaepeghem, Schmidt Jerry Vevig 6 Walker, Hough-Block, VanPaepeghem, Grant, Schmidt, Olson Linda Schmidt 5 Hough-Block, Totorica, Oldenburg, Olson, Lapp Waldo King 5 Vevig, Swain, Cline, Schmidt, Oldenburg Frank Demiero 5 Cline, Walker, VanPaepeghem, Newburn, Schmidt Lonnie Cline 4 VanPaepeghem, Newburn, Grant, Schmidt Byron Gjerde 3 Vevig, Cline, VanPaepeghem Dan Bukvich 3 Vevig, Schmidt, Lapp Jack Kunz 3 Vevig, Cline, Newburn Dave Cazier 3 Grant, Schmidt, Olson Doug Anderson 2 Cline, Totorica Dave Cross 2 VanPaepeghem, Schmidt Kirk Marcy 2 Schmidt, Lapp Ron VanOrder 2 Vevig, Cline
261 Table 12.2. Continued Vocal Jazz Mentor Name Number of Times Cited by the Following Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Cited Educators Phil Mattson 2 Vevig, Newburn Rich Lapp 2 Olson, Hough-Block Rob Newburn 2 Olson, Lapp Kenny Kraintz 1 Schmidt John Ward 1 Grant Gene Aitken 1 Olson Norm Wallen 1 Schmidt Vern Swain 1 Oldenburg Sue Hough-Block 1 Lapp Glen Grant 1 Lapp Paul Olson 1 Lapp
Fifteen professional vocal jazz ensembles, 21 professional vocal jazz soloists, seven professional big bands, and 21 professional instrumental jazz soloists were named as having impacted the educational vocal jazz progression of the early vocal jazz educators of the Boise Valley. By listening to recordings of professional jazz artists and ensembles vocal jazz educators in the Boise Valley learned the jazz style. They all used recordings of professional vocal jazz artists in their classrooms to teach jazz style as well as vocal improvisation to their students. Table 3 (on the next page) lists the names of the professional jazz artists and ensembles who were named as having impacted the vocal jazz ensemble educators in the Boise Valley from it’s inception through the academic year 1990.
The table also lists the type of ensemble or artist named, the number of times the artist of ensemble was mentioned, and the specific Boise Valley educators who named the artist/ensemble.
262 Table 12.3.
Professional Jazz Artist’s and Ensembles Who Influenced Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Educators
Jazz Artist or Ensemble Type of Number of Specific Boise Valley Educators Who Named the Artist* Times Artist Mentioned Ella Fitzgerald VJS 10 Vevig, Swain, Cline, Walker, Hough-Block, Gilk, Grant, Schmidt, Totorica, Oldenburg Singers Unlimited VJE 7 Vevig, Swain, Grant, Schmidt, Lapp, Totorica, Oldenburg The Hi-Lo’s VJE 6 Vevig, Swain, Grant, Schmidt, Lapp, Totorica ManhattanTransfer VJE 6 Vevig, Newburn, Grant, Schmidt, Olson, Totorica Mel Torme VJS 5 Vevig, Swain. Schmidt, Olson, Totorica Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross VJE 4 Swain, Cline, Grant, Schmidt Sarah Vaughan VJS 4 Cline, Walker, Schmidt, Oldenburg Mark Murphy VJS 4 Swain, Cline, Grant, Schmidt Duke Ellington IJE 4 Cline, Walker, Grant, Schmidt Miles Davis IJS 3 Cline, Grant, Schmidt Joe Pass IJS 3 Cline, Gilk, Grant Carmen McRae VJS 2 Cline, Schmidt Bobby McFerrin VJS 2 Schmidt, Totorica Dianne Reeves VJS 2 Schmidt, Newburn Double Six of Paris VJE 2 Vevig, Cline The Four Freshmen VJE 2 Swain, Schmidt The Meltones VJE 2 Vevig, Cline Chick Corea IJS 2 Grant, Totorica Thelonious Monk IJS 2 Cline, Grant John Coltrane IJS 2 Cline, Grant Stan Kenton IJE 2 Vevig, Walker Count Basie IJE 2 Cline, Walker Woody Herman IJE 2 Cline, Grant Benny Goodman IJE 2 Walker, Grant Glen Miller IJE 2 Grant, Schmidt Artie Shaw IJE 1 Schmidt Chet Baker VJS 1 Swain Eddie Jefferson VJS 1 Cline Blossom Dearie VJS 1 Cline Betty Carter VJS 1 Schmidt Billie Holiday VJS 1 Schmidt Louis Armstrong VJS 1 Walker Rosemary Clooney VJS 1 Gilk Frank Sinatra VJS 1 Schmidt Nat King Cole VJS 1 Schmidt Tony Bennett VJS 1 Schmidt Al Jarreau VJS 1 Schmidt Nancy Wilson VJS 1 Schmidt Harry Connick Jr. VJS 1 Schmidt George Benson VJS 1 Schmidt Dizzy Gillespie IJS 1 Cline Herbbie Hancock IJS 1 Cline Pat Metheney IJS 1 Cline George Shearing IJS 1 Grant Oscar Peterson IJS 1 Gilk Bill Evans IJS 1 Grant Art Tatum IJS 1 Gilk Dave Brubeck IJS 1 Gilk Buddy Rich IJS 1 Gilk Charlie Parker IJS 1 Grant
263 Table 12.3. Continued Jazz Artist or Ensemble Type Number of Specific Boise Valley Educators Who Named the Of Times Artist Artist* Mentioned Wayne Shorter IJS 1 Grant Kenny Burrell IJS 1 Grant Ornette Coleman IJS 1 Grant Sonny Rollins IJS 1 Grant Pat Metheney IJS 1 Grant The Pied Pipers VJE 1 Vevig The Modernaires VJE 1 Vevig Rare Silk VJE 1 Swain Kain & Krall VJE 1 Cline PM Singers VJE 1 Newburn Take 6 VJE 1 Schmidt The Ritz VJE 1 Schmidt The Swingle Singers VJE 1 Schmidt The New York Voices VJE 1 Schmidt
*VJS = Vocal Jazz Soloists / VJE = Vocal Jazz Ensemble / IJE – Instrumental Jazz Ensemble /
IJS = Instrumental Jazz Soloists.
What vocal jazz themed festivals/events were the directors and ensembles from the Boise
Valley attending, what were the logistics of the events, and what were the vocal jazz specific pedagogical advancements learned by choral educators of the region at these events? How did these festivals/events lead to the advancement of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley?
The early directors of vocal jazz singing ensembles in the Boise Valley attended vocal jazz festivals, workshops, and several conventions in order to observe, participate, and learn about vocal jazz ensemble singing. Vocal jazz educators from the Boise Valley obtained vocal jazz literature, learned about vocal jazz style, vocal improvisation, and learned pedagogical techniques at these events. The specific logistics of events and the advancements they provided to vocal jazz ensemble in the Boise valley are described in the narrative. Table 4 presents the names of the events and festivals the early educators from
264 the Boise valley attended from the 1970s through 1990. The table also includes the type of event it was, the location of the event, and the specific educators from the Boise Valley who participated in the event.
Table 12.4
Vocal Jazz Events Attended by Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Educators
Event Title Event Type Event Location Number of Boise Valley Participants & Participant & Time of Year Names
Inland/ University of Idaho/ Competitive Moscow, 15 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival Idaho Vevig, , Walker, Cline, VanPaepeghem, Brown, Hough, Festival Late February Swain, Oldenburg, Newburn, Grant, Gilk, Schmidt, Totorica, Olson, Lapp
Columbia Basin College Competitive Pasco, 12 Jazz Unlimited Festival Washington Vevig, Cline, VanPaepeghem, Hough-Block, Swain, Festival Mid to Late Brown, Oldenburg, Newburn, Grant, Schmidt, Olson, April Lapp
District III/ Non- Boise, 11 Boise State Competitive Idaho Vevig, VanPaepeghem, Hough-Block, Grant, Schmidt, University Festival Early February Olson, Lapp, Brown, Newburn, Oldenburg, Totorica Vocal Jazz Festival
ACDA Educator Varied 10 & Convention Vevig, Walker, Hough-Block, Swain, Cline, Brown, MENC Newburn, Olson, Lapp, Totorica Conventions
Mt. Hood/ Competitive Gresham, 9 Northwest Festival Oregon Vevig, Cline, VanPaepeghem, Swain, Oldenburg, Grant, Vocal Jazz Festival Late May Schmidt, Newburn, Brown
Southern Idaho Competitive Meridian, 4 Conference Festival Idaho Cline, Vevig, Swain, Newburn Vocal Jazz March Festival
265 Table 12.4. Continued Event Title Event Type Event Location Number of Boise Valley Participants & Participant & Time of Year Names
Reno International Competitive Reno, 4 Jazz Festival Festival Nevada Vevig, Walker, Cline, Swain Mid to Late April
Nyssa Competitive Nyssa, 4 Vocal Jazz Festival Festival Oregon Vevig, Newburn, Schmidt, Oldenburg April
Edmonds Community Non- Lynwood, 3 College Competitive Washington Grant, Totorica, Schmidt “Soundsation” Festival Early to Mid Vocal Jazz Festival March
International Educator Varied 2 Association Convention January Cline, Swain Of Jazz Educators Conventions
Phil Mattson Educator Spokane, 1 Vocal Jazz Workshop Summer Washington Newburn Clinic July
“Soundsation” Educator & Lynnwood, 1 Jazz Camp Student Washington Newburn Summer Camp August
Fullerton College Jazz Competitive Fullerton, 1 Festival Festival California Cline Mid- March
266 What was the physical make-up, choral sound/tone, and yearly logistical structure of a choral ensemble singing in a vocal jazz style from the Boise Valley region (inception –
1990)?
Information on the physical make-up and year long logistical procedures of director’s Vevig, Walker, Swain, Hough-Block, Cline, Brown, Newburn, Gilk, Grant, Schmidt,
Van Paepeghem, Olson, Lapp, Totorica, and Oldenburg is included in the narrative.
What were some of the specific vocal jazz rehearsal techniques and pedagogical tools used by the teachers of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley (inception-1990)? Where did they learn said techniques and acquire said materials?
All of the early vocal jazz ensemble educators from the Boise Valley believed it was important to listen to jazz style in order to understand it and internalize it. They often played recordings of professional jazz artists and ensembles for their specialty ensembles in order for them to emulate and authentically transfer the style in performance. Often they played recordings of the specific vocal arrangement(s) their ensemble was performing, prior to learning the arrangement(s). Rehearsal techniques specific to each of the early vocal jazz educators in the Boise Valley are in the narrative.
When teaching their students to scat sing (vocal improvisation) all 15 study participants felt that listening to great vocal improvisation was the best way to teach the technique. Study participant Bruce Walker mentioned that many of the early Boise Valley vocal jazz educators included scat singing sections in their ensembles performance sets before they knew the style or how to teach the technique; and this created some very uncomfortable moments for both audience members and the student improviser.319
319 Bruce Walker, oral interview by author, Caldwell, December 17, 2016.
267 Techniques for teaching vocal improvisation that are specific to each early vocal jazz educator from the Boise Valley are found in the narrative.
At the beginning of the vocal jazz ensemble singing movement in the Boise Valley, rhythm sections which accompanied the public school vocal jazz ensembles were comprised of student players recruited from each participating schools student population.
Participation in the competitive northwest vocal jazz festival circuit greatly affected the
Boise Valley vocal jazz directors’ decision to use students in their rhythm sections. In the
1980s, all of the major competitive vocal jazz festivals in the region began disqualifying vocal jazz ensembles from competition if they did not use student rhythm players to accompany their vocalists. The specific techniques each director in the Boise Valley used for teaching their rhythm sections are described in the narrative.
Each of the 15 study participants answered the question, “Who were the most popular vocal jazz arrangers during the time-period 1970 through 1990?” The summary of the data collectedis found in Table 5 (on the next page). It includes the name of the arranger, the number of times they were cited, and the specific vocal jazz educators to name them.
268 Table 12.5
Most Popular Vocal Jazz Arrangers of the Early Vocal Jazz Educators in the Boise Valley
Vocal Jazz Arranger Name Number of Times Cited by the Following Boise Valley Vocal Jazz Cited Educators Dave Barduhn 13 Vevig, Swain, Cline, Walker, Hough-Block, Oldenburg, VanPaepeghem, Newburn, Grant, Totorica, Schmidt, Lapp, Brown Kirby Shaw 12 Swain, Cline, Walker, Oldenburg, VanPaepeghem, Newburn, Grant, Gilk, Schmidt, Olson, Lapp, Brown Phil Mattson 7 Vevig, Cline, Walker, VanPaepeghem, Totorica, Schmidt, Newburn Gene Puerling 7 Cline, Walker, Oldenburg, Totorica, Schmidt, Brown, Newburn Dave Cazier 4 Cline, Grant, Totorica, Schmidt Kenny Kraintz 4 Newburn, Cline, Oldenburg, Schmidt Jack Kunz 4 Vevig, VanPaepeghem, Cline, Newburn Anita Kerr 3 Cline, Walker, Schmidt Roger Emerson 3 Walker, Gilk, Schmidt Dave Cross 3 Oldenburg, Schmidt, Lapp Hal Malcolm 3 Vevig, Swain, Cline Phil Azelton 3 Cline, VanPaepeghem, Vevig John Ward 3 Cline, Grant, Schmidt Dan Bukvitch 3 Vevig, Newburn, Schmidt Kirk Marcy 3 Cline, Schmidt, Lapp Norm Wallen 2 Schmidt, Totorica Ed Lojeski 2 Gilk, Schmidt Greg Yasinitsky 1 Cline Michele Weir 1 Schmidt
Directors of educational vocal jazz ensembles in the Boise Valley acquired the pedagogical techniques they used for teaching vocal jazz by attending festivals, clinics, and conventions. The research reveals that they also obtained their most important pedagogical tool, the arrangements they used with their ensembles, at these events. (A list of the vocal jazz literature mentioned by interviewees during this research can be found in
Appendix E on page 288).
The research for this dissertation revealed that the cannon of documents on the educational vocal jazz movement in the United States is limited. Other than Hal Malcolm’s memoir (“Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of ‘Jazz’ in Vocal-
269 Ensemble Music Education,”) one document about Phil Mattson (Sheryl Lynn Monkelien -
“The Influence of Phil Mattson on Vocal Jazz Education in America: A Case Study”) exists in the cannon of key figures in the vocal jazz education movement. The current study indicates that future studies on the life, music, and careers of Waldo King, Dave Barduhn,
Kirby Shaw, Frank Demiero, Byron Gjerde, Jack Kunz, Dave Cross, and Kenny Kraintz would be valuable additions to the litany of documents written on key figures in vocal jazz education movement.
There are currently no histories written about specific educational vocal jazz ensembles from the vocal jazz singing movement. A history of the groundbreaking educational vocal jazz ensemble “Genesis” from Mt. Hood Community College, or the early influential vocal jazz choir from Edmonds Community College “Soundsation” would serve as ideal representatives to begin the documentation of specific educational vocal jazz ensembles in the United States. Additional studies could also be conducted on the
University of North Texas “Jazz Singers,” “Gold Company” from Western Michigan
University, The University of Miami “Vocal Jazz Ensemble,” or “Vocal Jazz Ensemble 1” at either Central Washington University or the University of Northern Colorado.
One document (“The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and the Continuance of the Jazz
Legacy: A Qualitative Study,” by Laurel Jean Tangen-Foster) completes the catalogue on specific vocal jazz festivals and events in the educational vocal jazz ensemble movement.
This study revealed that the histories of the Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival, the Reno
International Jazz Festival, the Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited Festival, the
Soundsation Vocal Jazz Festival, or the Soundsation/Frank Demiero Jazz Camp, are worthy subjects of future research.
270 As Colin Michael Mason states, “Much can be gained from researching past experiences and the reflections of figures who were ‘in the trenches’ during the formative period of formal jazz education.”320 Future projects similar to the one contained in this document would continue the cataloguing of the people, ensembles, events, literature, and rehearsal techniques, of the early vocal jazz ensemble movement in the northwest region.
The communities of Portland, Eugene, and Salem in Oregon: and Seattle, Vancouver,
Yakima, the Tri Cities, and Spokane in Washington, would be ideal locations to consider for similar future projects. If employed in other regions of the country, a similar study could provide a broader and more complete view of the vocal jazz ensemble educational movement in the United States.
320 Colin Michael Mason, “A Comparative and Historical Survey of Four Seminal Figures in the History of Jazz Education” (DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2005), 3, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, (3165100).
271 APPENDIX A
NAJE EDUCATOR JOURNAL - EDUCATIONAL VOCAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE
ARTICLES (1969-1990)
This appendix lists all of the articles related to vocal jazz ensemble singing published by the
National Association of Jazz Educators (NAJE) in their NAJE Educator newsletters (1968-
1970) and Journals (1970-1990). It includes the title of the article and the author as well as
the journal volume number and date of publication.
Volume Date Author Article Title Vol. 2, No.2 October Neil W. Bridge “Something Worth Listening to For the 1969 Vocal Jazz Educator” Part 1- Professional Vocal Jazz Ensemble Recordings (List) Vol. 2, No. 3 Feb/Mar Neil W. Bridge “Something Worth Listening to For the 1970 Vocal Jazz Educator” Part 2 – Professional Pop & Jazz Soloists (List) Vol. 3, No. 3 Feb/Mar Robert R. Kull “The Northwest Swing Choir Festival” 1971 Vol. 3, No.3 Feb/Mar Michael P. Walker “The Stage Choir” 1971 Vol. 4, No. 1 Oct/Nov Anthony C. “The Jazz Choir” 1971 Cappatonia Vol. 4, No. 3 Feb/Mar Betti Slack “Show Choir Section – This is How You 1972 Do It – Boulder High School Show Choir” Vol. 4, No. 3 Feb/Mar Unknown “Choral Spotlight – ‘Twilighters’ From 1972 McMinville High School” Vol. 5, No. 1 Oct/Nov Richard Jones “Swing Choirs: A Developing Choral 1972 Form” Vol. 5, No. 3 Feb/Mar Richard R. Bennett “Technique of the Jazz Singer” 1973 Vol. 5, No. 3 Feb/Mar William McQueen “The Stage Band/Jazz Choir Concept” 1973 Vol. 6, No. 2 Dec/Jan Kirby Shaw “Some Thoughts on Vocal Jazz” 1974 Vol. 6, No. 4 Apr/May Leighton J. Tiffault “Jazz-Pop Vocal Groups” 1974 Vol. 7, No. 3 Feb/Mar Doug Anderson “Ten Ways to Improve Your Vocal Jazz 1975 Ensemble”
272 Volume Date Author Article Title Vol. 7, No. 4 Apr/May Kenny Kraintz “The Vocal Jazz Ensemble” – (Listening 1975 Resources in Vocal Jazz) Vol. 8, No. 2 Dec/Jan Waldo King “Start With the Blues!” 1976 Vol., 9, No. 1 Oct/Nov Waldo King “Tone Production in the Vocal Jazz 1976 Ensemble” Vol. 9, No. 2 Dec/Jan Waldo King “Rehearsing the Vocal Chart” 1977 Vol. 9, No. 3 Feb/Mar Waldo King “Listening: A Basic Experience in Vocal 1977 Jazz” Vol. 10, No. 1 Oct/Nov Waldo King “Start A vocal Group” 1977 Vol. 10, No. 3 Feb/Mar John Moawad “Some Thoughts On Vocal Interpretation” 1978 Vol. 10, No. 4 Apr/May Dan Schwartz “Jazz Vocalises” (List) 1978 Vol. 11, No. 2 Dec/Jan Rick Arnold “Are You Avoiding Vocal Jazz?” 1979 Vol. 11, No. 3 Feb/Mar Gary B. Walker “In the Beginning-California’s All-State 1979 Jazz Choir” Vol. 11, No. 3 Feb/Mar Jack Kunz “Bridging the Gap” 1979 Vol. 12, No. 1 Oct/Nov Waldo King “Applying Instrumental Jazz Concepts to 1979 the Training of a Vocal Jazz Ensemble” Vol. 12, No. 1 Oct/Nov Doug Anderson “Jazz Ballad Interpretation in the Vocal 1979 Jazz Ensemble” Vol. 12, No. 1 Oct/Nov Dave Cross “The Rhythm Section and the Jazz Choir” 1979 Vol. 12, No. 1 Oct/Nov Dan Schwartz “A Listing of All Publishers of Jazz or 1979 Pop/Rock Choral Music” (List) Vol. 12, No. 2 Dec/Jan Jack Kunz “Arranging for the Jazz Choir” 1980 Vol. 12, No. 3 Feb/Mar Jack Kunz “Do It Now!” 1980 Vol. 13, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “What Is Vocal Jazz?” 1980 Vol. 13, No. 1 Oct/Nov Frank Demiero “A Jazz Festival Is born” 1980 Vol. 13, No. 1 Oct/Nov Diana Spradling “What is Your Vocal Jazz I.Q.?” 1980 (Quiz) Vol. 13. No. 1 Oct/Nov Aitken, Moawad, “Most Frequently Used Vocal Jazz 1980 Shaw, Mattson, Recordings” (Lists) Anderson, & Kunz
273 Volume Date Author Article Title Vol. 13, No. 3 Feb/Mar Gene Aitken “The Vocal Jazz Ensemble – Auditioning 1981 and Size” Vol. 14, No. 1 Oct/Nov H. David Caffey “Beginning Improvisation For Vocal Jazz 1981 Ensemble” Vol. 14, No. 1 Oct/Nov Paris Rutherford “Topics in Vocal Jazz – The Studio Singer” 1981 Vol. 14, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Rehearsal Set-Up and Matching Voices” 1981 Vol. 14, No. 1 Oct/Nov Larry Lapin “The Studio Music and Vocal Jazz Degree” 1981 Vol. 14, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Directory of Collegiate Vocal Jazz 1981 Ensembles” Vol. 14, No. 2 Dec/Jan Gene Aitken “The Performance Set-Up and Miking 1982 Techniques” Vol. 14, No. 4 Apr/May Gene Aitken “”The Vocal Jazz Rhythm Section” 1982 Vol. 15, No. 1 Oct/Nov Scott Frederickson “Vocal Improvisation – A Practical 1982 Approach” Vol. 15, No. 1 Oct/Nov Jim Edwards “Miking Techniques For Jazz / Swing / 1982 Show Choirs” Vol. 15, No. 1 Oct/ Nov Gene Aitken “Directory of Collegiate Vocal Jazz 1982 Ensembles” Vol. 15, No. 2 Dec/Jan Paris Rutherford “Rehearsal Techniques for the Jazz Choir” 1983 Vol. 15, No.3 Feb/Mar Gene Aitken “The Rhythm Section” 1983 Vol. 15, No. 4 Apr/May Gene Aitken “The Rhythm Section - Bass” 1983 Vol. 16, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken & “Vocal Jazz Improvisation: An 1983 Jamey Aebersold Instrumental Approach” Vol. 16, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Jazz: Playing Piano Into the Vocal Jazz 1983 Ensemble” Vol. 16, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “NAJE Recommended Vocal Jazz Soloists 1983 & Clinicians/Adjudicators Vol. 16, No. 1 Oct/Nov Larry Lapin “Vocal Jazz Majors Speak OUT!” 1983 Vol. 16, No. 3 Feb/Mar Gene Aitken “Rehearsal Techniques” 1984 Vol. 16, No. 4 Apr/May Gene Aitken “Rehearsal Techniques – Jazz Inflections” 1984 Vol. 17, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Vocal Jazz Vibrato” 1984 Vol. 17, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Rehearsal Techniques – Jazz Inflections” 1984
274 Volume Date Author Article Title Vol. 17, No. 3 Feb/Mar Gene Aitken “Individual Miking” 1985 Vol. 18, No. 1 Oct/Nov Paul Rinzler ”Does Vocal Jazz Really Hurt the Voice?” 1985 Vol. 18, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Individual Miking: The Set-Up & 1985 Rehearsal” Vol. 18, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Directory of Collegiate Vocal Jazz 1985 Ensembles” Vol. 18, No. 2 Dec/Jan Kimberley McCord “How To Vocal Clinic With Patty Coker” 1986 Vol. 19, No. 1 Oct/ Nov Gene Aitken “Sherrill Milnes: Baritone Extrodinare 1986 Talks About Vocal Jazz” (Interview) Vol. 19, No. 1 Oct/Nov Jan Shapiro “The Realities of Vocal Jazz Style” 1986 Vol. 19, No. 1 Oct/Nov Dave Teal “Educational Aspects for Vocal Jazz 1986 Festivals” Vol. 19, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Vocal Jazz Composers/Arrangers” 1986 (List) Vol. 19, No. 2 Dec/Jan Diana Spradling “Establishing Credibility in the Vocal Jazz 1987 Movement” Vol. 20, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Bobby McFerrin: Expect the 1987 Unexpected” (Interview) Vol. 20, No. 1 Oct/Nov Jan Shapiro “I Want To Sing Like Madonna-How Come 1987 I Have To Sing Vaccai?” Vol. 20, No. 1 Oct/Nov Gene Aitken “Terra Nova: Make Music Fun To Watch 1987 and Perform” Vol. 20, No. 4 Apr/May Gene Aitken “Best Selling Vocal Jazz: Survey of Seven 1988 Retailers” Vol. 21, No. 1 Fall Janice Borla “Instrumental Transcriptions for the 1988 Vocal Soloist” Vol. 21, No. 3 Winter Gene Aitken “Four Freshmen” (Interview) 1989 Vol. 21, No. 4 Spring Gene Aitken “A Fresh Start: Add a Vocal Jazz Group to 1989 Your Program” Vol. 22, No. 4 Spring Jan Shapiro “Connee Boswell and the Boswell Sisters: 1990 Pioneers in Vocal Jazz”
275 APPENDIX B
HAL MALCOLM - SIGNIFICANT EARLY MT. HOOD VOCAL JAZZ FESTIVAL
PARTICIPANTS (1968-1985)
This appendix lists the schools (including city and state) and directors Hal Malcolm felt had an impact at the Northwest Swing/Vocal Jazz Festival between its inception in 1968 through the year 1985.
Years School City State Director 1968-1970 Columbia River Vancouver Washington Bob Montgomery 1968-1970 Meadowdale Lynnwood Washington Bob Burton 1968-1970 The Dalles Dalles Oregon James Debussman 1968-1970 McMinnville McMinnville Oregon Doug Anderson 1968-1970 Fort Vancouver Vancouver Washington Keith Neubauer 1968-1970 Columbia Troutdale Oregon Ted Baer 1971-1972 Seaside Seaside Oregon Kathleen Hogsett 1971-1972 Roosevelt Seattle Washington Waldo King 1971-1972 Clover Park Lakewood Washington Bruce Brummond 1971-1972 Toppinish Toppinish Washington Gerald Burr 1971-1972 South Kitsap Port Orchard Washington Jeff Mitchell 1971-1972 Tahoma Maple Valley Washington Lonnie Butz 1971-1972 Hazen Renton? Washington Jerry McManus 1973-1974 Sheldon Eugene Oregon Glenn Patton 1973-1974 Gresham Gresham Oregon Gary Funk 1973-1974 Tyee Seattle Washington Dave Cross 1973-1974 Pleasant Hill Pleasant Hill Oregon Jim Steinberger 1973-1974 Crescent Valley Corvallis Oregon Gordon Tjernlund 1973-1974 West Valley Yakima Washington Denny Harvill 1975-1976 A.C. Davis Yakima Washington Roger Stansbury 1975-1976 Borah Boise Idaho Vern Swain 1975-1976 Washington Portland Oregon Don Gissel 1975-1976 Cottage Grove Cottage Grove Oregon Caleb Standafer 1975-1976 Capital Boise Idaho Jerry Vevig 1975-1976 Kamiakin Kennewick Washington Steve Baer 1975-1976 Rogue River Rogue River Oregon Gene Simmons 1977-1979 South Salem Salem Oregon Mike Crawford 1977-1979 Hanford Hanford Washington Dinah Lindberg 1977-1979 Tigard Tigard Oregon George Koch 1977-1979 Mountain Home Mountain Home Idaho Lonnie Cline 1977-1979 Connell Connell Washington Dave Wright 1977-1979 Eisenhower Yakima Washington Gary Basinger 1977-1979 Tualatin Tualatin Oregon Joyce Eilers 1980-1985 Amity Amity Oregon Rick Cooper 1980-1985 Churchill Eugene Oregon Dennis Saunders
276 Years School City State Director 1980-1985 South Salem Salem Oregon Loren Wenz 1980-1985 Sprague Salem Oregon Gary Frame 1980-1985 A.C. Davis Yakima Washington Deb Wagner 1980-1985 The Dalles Dalles Oregon Lloyd Walworth 1980-1985 Rex Putnam Milwaukee Oregon John Baker 1980-1985 Baker Baker Oregon Richard Torrance 1980-1985 Capital Boise Idaho Linda Schmidt 1980-1985 St. Helena St. Helena California Craig Bond 1980-1985 Lake Stevens Lake Stevens Washington Paul Harvey 1980-1985 Lewis and Clark Spokane Washington Shawn Wright
277 APPENDIX C
NORTHWESTERN CONVENTION PERFORMANCES & CLINICS RELATED TO VOCAL JAZZ
ENSEMBLE SINGING (1968-1990)
This appendix lists the vocal jazz events presented by ensembles or clinicians from the northwestern region at conventions of the National Association of Jazz Educators, the
Music Educators National Conference, and American Choral Director’s Association, during the time period investigated (1969-1990). Each event listed contains the date it occurred, the title of the convention (MENC/ACDA/NAJE), the type of event it was
(clinic/performance/panel), the specifics of the event, and the name of the city and state the event occurred.
Key to the Convention Title section:
NAJE = National Association of Jazz Educators / MENC = Music Educators National
Conference / ACDA = American Choral Directors Association / All-NW = All Northwest
Convention / National = National Convention
Key to the event type section:
PA = Panel / PE = Performing Ensemble at the Convention / C = Clinic at the Convention /
JN = Jazz Night / RS = Reading Session
Date Convention Event Event Specifics Location Title Type 1969 MENC PE Fort Vancouver High School Eugene, March 19-22 All - NW “Swing Choir” Oregon Vancouver, Washington F. Keith Neubauer, Director 1971 MENC PE Meadowdale High School Boise, Idaho March 24-27 All - NW “The Impressions” Lynnwood, Washington Robert Burton, Director
278 Date Convention Event Event Specifics Location Title Type 1973 MENC PE Roosevelt High School Portland, February All-NW “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” Oregon 16-19 Seattle, Washington Waldo King, Director
Mt. Hood Community College “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” Gresham, Oregon Hal Malcolm, Director 1973 NAJE C “Rehearsal Techniques For Anaheim, November 15 Vocal Jazz Ensembles” California Hal Malcolm, Clinician 1974 MENC C “Vocal Improvisation – A New Anaheim, March 22-26 National Frontier In Music Education” California Hal Malcolm, Clinician 1974 NAJE PE Cascade High School Chicago, November “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” Illinois 15-18 Everett, Washington Kenny Kraintz, Director 1975 ACDA C “Vocal Improvisation – A New St. Louis, March 6-8 National Frontier In Music Education” Missouri Hal Malcolm, Clinician
1976 NAJE C “Beginning Techniques For Northridge, January 22-25 Vocal Jazz Ensemble And California Rhythm Section” Waldo King, Clinician
C “Advanced Techniques for Vocal Jazz Ensemble” Frank Demiero, Clinician and “Soundsation” Edmonds Community College Lynnwood, Washington 1976 ACDA PE McMinnville High School Seattle, February Northwest “The Highliters” Washington 27-28 Divisional McMinville, Oregon Doug Anderson, Director
279 Date Convention Event Event Specifics Location Title Type 1978 NAJE PE Central Washington University Dallas, January 5-8 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Texas Ellensburg, Washington John Moawad, Director
C “Developmental Techniques for the Vocal Jazz Ensemble” John Moawad, Clinician
PA “How To Start A Vocal Jazz Group” Waldo King, John Moawad, Dave Barduhn, & Roger Letson, Panelists
1978 ACDA PE Lake Washington High School Portland, March Northwest “Jazz Choir” Oregon 10-11 Divisional Kirkland, Washington Jack Kunz, Director 1978 MENC PE Borah High School Chicago, April 12-16 National “Contemporary Directions Illinois Vocal Ensemble” Boise, Idaho Vern Swain, Director 1979 MENC PE 1st All-Northwest “Swing Billings, All-NW Choir” Montana Brent Pierce, Director Frank Demiero – Coordinator 1980 NAJE PE Lake Washington High School Albuquerqu January 17-20 “Jazz Choir” e, Jack Kunz, Director New Mexico Kirkland, Washington
P “What Do You Want To Know About Vocal Jazz?” Jack Kunz, Waldo King, Doug Anderson, Roger Letson, & Kirby Shaw, Panelists
280 Date Convention Event Event Specifics Location Title Type 1980 ACDA PE Edmonds Community College Spokane, March 6-8 Northwest “Soundsation” Washington Divisional Lynnwood, Washington Frank Demiero, Director
PE Shoreline Community College “12:30 Vocal Jazz Choir” Seattle, Washington Bruce Spitz, Director
C “Jazz voice” Frank Demiero, Clinician
C “Jazz/Show Choirs” Frank Demiero, Clinician
1981 ACDA C “Vocal Jazz-Anyone Can Do It” New March 4-7 National Doug Anderson (Literature Orleans, and Materials), Phil Mattson Louisiana (rhythm section), John Cryder (selecting a sound system), and Ken Kraintz (Making the chart swing), Panelists
1983 ACDA RS First Popular Music Reading Nashville, March 9-12 National Session Tennessee 1983 MENC PE South Salem High School Seattle, All-NW “Southernaires” Washington Salem, Oregon Loren Wenz, Director
PE Edmonds Community College “Soundsation” Lynnwood, Washington Frank Demiero, Director
281 Date Convention Event Event Specifics Location Title Type 1986 ACDA PE Capital High School Missoula, March 13-15 Northwest “Capital Singers” Montana Divisional Boise, Idaho Linda Schmidt, Director
PE Edmonds Community College “Soundsation” Lynnwood, Washington Dave Cross, Director
PE Phil Mattson School “Vocal Ensemble” Spokane, Washington Phil Mattson, Director 1988 ACDA PE Bothell High School Seattle, March 10-12 Northwest “Vocal Jazz Ensemble” Washington Divisional Bothell, Washington Ken Wilson, Director
PE Edmonds Community College “Soundsation” Lynnwood, Washington Dave Barduhn, Director
PE Pacific Lutheran University “Park Avenue” Tacoma, Washington Phil Mattson, Director 1989 MENC PE Mountain View High Schhol Boise, All-NW “Mountain Express” Idaho Vancouver, Washington Janet Reiter, Director
Capital High School PE “Capital Singers” Boise, Idaho Linda Schmidt, Director
282 APPENDIX D
NAJE EDUCATOR JOURNAL FEATURED CHOIRS (1971-1989)
This appendix lists the vocal ensembles that were featured in the “Choral aids” section of the NAJE Educator Journal from 1971 through 1989 (when the organization stopped featuring choirs in their publication). It includes the issue and volume number / the name of the ensemble and the school and state they represent/ and the name of the ensembles director.
Volume / Date Group/School-Institution/City/State Director Vol. 3, No. 3 Swing Choir George February/March 1971 West High School Mantzke Bremerton, Washington Vol. 5, No. 3 Jazz Choir Robert L. February/March 1973 Nathan Hale High School Cathey Seattle, Washington Vol. 6, No. 1 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Kirby October/November 1973 College of the Siskiyous Shaw Weed, California Vol. 6, No. 2 Choralier Curt December/January 1973 Temper High School Chalgren Konosha, Wisconsin Vol. 6, No. 3 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Hal February/March 1974 Mt. Hood Community College Malcolm Gresham, Oregon Vol. 6, No. 4 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Waldo April/May 1974 Roosevelt High School King Seattle, Washington Vol. 7, No. 1 Jazz Choir Larry October/November 1974 Kingsburg High School Johnson Kingsburg, California Vol. 7, No. 2 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Kenny December/January 1974 Cascade High School Kraintz Everett, Washington Vol. 7, No.3 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Kathleen February/March 1975 Seaside High School Hogsett Seaside, Oregon
283 Volume / Date Group/School-Institution/City/State Director Vol. 7, No. 4 Twilighters Doug April/May 1975 McMinnville HS Anderson McMinnville, Oregon Vol. 8, No. 1 Excalibur Show Choir Ron October/November 1975 Fairview High School Revier Boulder, Colorado Vol. 8, No.2 Studio Singers Jerry December/January 1976 Hazen High School McManus Renton, Washington Vol. 8, No. 4 Contemporary Directions Vocal Ensemble Vern April/May 1976 Borah High School Swain Boise, Idaho Vol. 9, No. 1 Sound Design Dave October/November 1976 Tyee High School Cross Seattle, Washington Vol. 9, No. 2 Madrigal and Jazz Vocal Ensemble LaWayne December/January 1977 Vestavia Hills High School Flemming Vestavia Hills, Alabama *Vol. 9, No. 3 Ascensions Jim February/March 1977 Pleasant Hill High School Steinberger Pleasant Hill, Oregon Vol. 10, No. 1 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Jack October/ November 1977 Lake Washington High School Kunz Kirkland, Washington Vol. 10, No. 2 Vocal Jazz Choir John December/Jannuary1978 Central Washington University Moawad Ellensburg, Washington Vol. 10, No. 3 Jazz Choir Marvin February/March 1978 Mustang High School Beach Mustang, Oklahoma Vol. 10, No. 4 Duh Monster Singers! Roger April/May 1978 AC Davis High School Stansbury Yakima, Washington Vol. 11, No. 1 Dragonaires Swing Choir Penny October/November 1978 Dallas High School Sands Dallas, Oregon Vol. 11, No. 2 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Waldo December/Jannuary1979 Roosevelt High School King Seattle, Washington Vol. 11, No. 3 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Gary February/March 1979 Eisenhower High School Baisinger Yakima, Washington
284 Volume / Date Group/School-Institution/City/State Director Vol. 11, No. 4 The Madisonians Sandra April/May 1979 James Madison University Cryder Harrisonburg, Virginia Vol. 12, No. 1 Vocal Jazz Ensemble 1 Gene October/November 1979 University of Northern Colorado Aitken Greeley, Colorado Vol. 12, No. 2 Jazz-Madrigal Singers Rick December/January 1980 Jess Lanier High School Arnold Bessemer, Alabama Vol. 12, No. 3 Jazz Choir Dr. Gerald February/March 1980 Pierce College Eskelin Woodland Hills, California Vol. 12, No. 4 Sight and Sound Vocal Jazz Ensemble Lonnie April/May 1980 Mountain Home High School Cline Mountain Home, Idaho Vol. 13, No. 1 Vocal Jazz Ensemble 1 Larry October/November 1980 University of Miami Lapin Coral Gables, Florida Vol. 13, No. 2 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Brent December/January 1981 Fullerton College Pierce Fullerton, California Vol. 13, No. 3 Jazz Choir Robert February/March 1981 University of North Dakota VanVoorhis Grand Forks, North Dakota Vol. 13, No. 4 Jazz Singers Paris April/May 1981 University of North Texas Rutherford Denton, Texas Vol. 14, No. 1 Gold Company Steve October/November 1981 Western Michigan University Zegree Kalamazoo, Michigan Vol. 14, No. 2 Excalibur Jazz-Show Choir Ron December/January 1982 Fairview High School Revier Boulder, Colorado Vol. 14, No. 3 Soundsation Frank February/March 1982 Edmonds Community College Demiero Lynnwood, Washington Vol. 14, No. 4 Angelaires –Vocal Jazz Ensemble Jim April/May 1982 East High School Guinn Denver, Colorado Vol. 15, No. 1 Jazz Ensemble Jan October/November 1982 Andrew Hill High School DeShera San Jose, California
285 Volume / Date Group/School-Institution/City/State Director Vol. 15, No. 2 Jazz Singers Roger December/January 1983 DeAnza College Letson Cupertino, California Vol. 15, No. 3 Vocal Jazz Choir Cheryl February/March 1983 Turner Ashby High School West Dayton, Virginia Vol. 15, No. 4 Serra Singers Lyle April/May 1983 Junpero Serra Junior-Senior High School Stone San Diego, California Vol. 16, No. 1 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Byron October/November 1983 Columbia Basin Community College Gjerde Pasco, Washington Vol. 16, No. 2 Jazz Choir John December/January 1984 Newport High School Elmer Newport, Oregon Vol. 16, No. 3 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Warren February/March 1984 Cuesta College Balfour San Luis Obispo, California Vol. 16, No. 4 Jazz Choir Henry April/May 1984 Beaver Dam Junior High School Guthknee Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Vol. 17, No. 1 Collegians Dr. Ralph October/November 1984 Eastern Washington University Manzo Cheney, Washington Vol. 17, No. 2 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Dave December/January 1985 Ithaca College Riley Ithaca, New York Vol. 17, No. 3 Vocal-Instrumental Jazz-Rock Ensemble Carol February/March 1985 C.W.Baker High School Jacobe Baldwinsville, New York Vol. 17, No. 4 Jazz Choir Bill April/May 1985 Moses Lake High School McGuire Moses Lake, Washington Vol. 18, No. 1 Shades of Blue Duane October/November 1985 Grand Rapids Junior College Davis Grand Rapids, Michigan Vol. 18, No. 2 Lab Singers Bart December/January 1986 Arts Magnet High School Marantz Dallas, Texas Vol. 18, No. 3 Hi-Fidelity Dave February/March 1986 University High School Teal Spokane, Washington
286 Volume / Date Group/School-Institution/City/State Director Vol. 18 No. 4 Ambassadors Dave April/May 1986 North Penn High School Giersch Lawndale, Pennsylvania Vol. 19, No.1 Studio Jazz Singers Jan October/November 1986 Mt. Pleasant High School De Shera Mount Pleasant, California Vol. 19, No. 2 Dorian Singers Jim December/January 1987 South Eugene High School Steinberger Eugene, Oregon Vol. 19, No. 3 Roadshow Choir Gerald February/March 1987 Lakewood High School Wondrak Lakewood, Ohio Vol. 20, No.2 Southernaires Loren December/January 1988 South Salem High School Wenz Salem, Oregon Vol. 20, No. 3 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Kay February/March 1988 Evergreen High School Walker Vancouver, Washington Vol. 20, No.4 Vocal Jazz Ensemble John April/May 1988 Cal State University at Long Beach Prince Long Beach, California Vol. 21, No. 1 Highlises Ray Fall 1988 Thornton High School Sheehan Thornton, Colorado Vol. 21, No. 3 Vocal Jazz Ensemble Denise Winter 1989 Mead High School Doering Spokane, Washington
287 APPENDIX E
VOCAL JAZZ TYPE LITERATURE PERFORMED BY EDUCATIONAL VOCAL JAZZ
ENSEMBLES FROM THE BOISE VALLEY (1970-1990)
This appendix contains the specific vocal jazz type arrangements used by vocal jazz educators from the Boise valley from 1970-1990.
Each entry includes the song title, arranger’s name, publisher and choral voicing. It also includes the style of the arrangement.
Abbreviations for the style category include:
Med = medium / Accom. = Accompanied /Accap. = A cappella.
Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style A Beautiful Friendship Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Med/Up Divisi Swing Agua De Beber Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Latin Jazz Ain’t Misbehavin’ Chuck Cassey Belwin-Mills SATB Medium Swing Ain’t Nobody Scott Scott SATB Up Frederickson Swing All Right, Okay, You Win Dave Cazier Unpublished SATB Swing Divisi Feature Alfie Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Swing All About The Blues Carl Strommen Alfred SATB Blues/ Rock All Of Me Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Medium Swing Almost Like Being In Dave Barduhn Creative SATB Med/Up Love World Divisi Swing Alone And Blue Kenny Kraintz Scott SATB Swing Am I Blue Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Ballad Divisi Feature April In Paris Dave Barduhn Creative SATB Medium World/ Divisi Swing Hal Leonard
288 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style Back In Your Own Chuck Cassey Unknown SATB Medium Backyard Divisi Swing Beat Goes On, The Roscoe Columbia SATB Show/ Pictures Rock Bein’ Green Dave Barduhn Hal Leonard SATB Ballad/ Divisi Swing Better Than Anything Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Jazz Divisi Waltz Birdland Phil Mattson Hal Leonard SATB Fusion Bluer Than Blue Kenny Kraintz Alfred SATB Slow Swing Blues Down To My Shoes Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Medium Swing Blues In The Night Teena Chinn Warner SSA Blues Brothers Blues On The Run Brent Pierce Warner SATB Up Brothers Swing Swing Born Free Freed Hansen SATB Pop Ballad Bourree For Bach Williams Sam Fox SATB Medium Swing Boy From New York City Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Pop Brothers and Sisters Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Gospel/ Rock But Beautiful Jack Kunz Hal Leonard SATB Accom. Divisi Ballad Bye Bye Blackbird Alan Yankee Creative SATB Med/Up World Divisi Swing Bye, Bye Blues Cassey Bourne SATB Med/Up Swing Charleston, Flappers, Joyce Eilers Jenson 3 Part Jazz And A Razz-A-Ma-Taz Novelty Chiapis Dave Barduhn Creative SATB Time World Divisi Chart Christmas Wishes Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Pop/ Rock Close To You Leaman Hansen SATB Pop Come Rain Or Come Gene Puerling Hal Leonard SATB Up Shine Swing Corner Pocket John Ward Unpublished SATB Med/Up Divisi Swing Da Lovely Scott Scott SATB Latin Frederickson Jazz
289 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style Daffodil Hill Thompson Kysar SATB Medium Swing Deep River Davies Kysar SATB Medium Swing Don’t Get Around Much Jack Kunz Jenson SATB Medium Anymore Swing Diamond Girl Shay Warner SATB Rock Brothers Doo Bee Ooo Wah Larry McVey Unpublished SATB Swing Divisi Don’t Misunderstand Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Feature Divisi Ballad Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Accom. Divisi Ballad Down For The Count John Ward Unpublished SATB Blues Divisi Dr. Jazz Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Up Swing Dream A Little Dream Of Norman Walton SATB Slow Me Luboff Swing Eager Beaver Stan Kenton Creative SATB Med/Up. World Divisi Swing Eleanor Rigby Vern Swain UNC Jazz SATB Ballad/ Divisi Swing Embraceable You Phil Mattson Unpublished SATB Accap. Divisi Ballad Everybody’s Boppin’ John Ward Kysar SATB Bebop Everybody Needs A Roger Emerson Jenson 3 Part Easy Friend Rock Eye’s Of A Child Slater Leeds SATB/ Rock SSA Eye Of The Tiger Brymer Unknown SATB Pop Exactly Like You Vern Swain UNC Jazz SATB Ballad/ Divisi Swing First We Must Be Friends Roger Emerson Jenson 3 Part Easy Rock Flat Foot Flogee Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Med. Swing Foggy Day In London Busch Creative SATB Ballad Town, A World Divisi For All We Know Riley Studio PR SATB Ballad For All We Know Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SATB Accom. Ballad
290 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style For Once In My Life Bob Alcivar Unpublished SATB Swing Four Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB BeBop Divisi Fugue Sandwich Manners Columbia SATB Jazz Pictures Fugue Georgia On My Mind Gene Puerling Studio PR SATB Accom. Ballad Give Me A Plain Old Jack Kunz Jenson SATB Medium Simple Song Swing Give Me A Song With A Alan Yankee Creative SATB Swing Beautiful Melody World Divisi Feature God Bless The Child Anita Kerr Marks SATB Rock/ Spiritual God Bless The Child McLin Marks SATB Musical/ Show Godchild Waldo King Unpublished SATB Bebop Divisi? Goodbye Love Kenny Kraintz Scott/Kysar SATB Accap. Divisi Ballad Great Feelin’ Scott Scott SATB Up Frederickson Swing Greetings and Steve Unpublished SATB Funk Salutations Christophersen Divisi Groovin’ High / Waldo Unpublished SATB Bebop Whispering King Divisi Guess Who I Saw Today? Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Feature Divisi Ballad Here’s That Rainy Day Dave Barduhn Creative SATB Ballad/ World Divisi Swing How Insensitive Anita Kerr MCA SA/SSA/ Latin SATB Jazz Hurting Each Other Chuck Cassey Belwin-Mills SATB Pop Ballad I Can’t Give You Lift Unpublished SATB Med/Up Anything But Love Un credited Swing I Could Write A Book John Ward Unpublished SATB Latin Divisi Jazz/ Swing I Love Lucy Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Ballad/ Divisi Latin Jazz I Return To Music Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Pop I Want To See You Again Kirby Shaw Jenson SATB Medium Swing
291 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style I Will Be With You Every Scott Studio PR SATB Accap. Christmas Ballad If Chuck Cassey Columbia SATB Pop Ballad If Ever I Would Leave Jack Kunz Jenson SATB Swing/ You Divisi Ballad If I Were A Bell Dave Cazier Unpublished SATB Latin Jazz/ Swing I’ll Be Seeing You Phil Mattson Williamson SATB Accap. Divisi Ballad I’m Beginning To See Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Med/Up The Light Divisi Swing I’m Fallin’ In Love With Kenny Kraintz Jenson SATB Med/Up You Divisi Swing I’m Feeling Right With Kenny Kraintz Scott SATB Med/Up You Swing I’m Glad There Is You Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Accom. Divisi Ballad I’m Thankful To Be An Otis Skillings Beacon Hill SATB Patriotic American Music Medley In The Mood Sterling Shawnee SATB Pop/ Swing In The Wee Small Hours Dave Barduhn Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Of The Morning Divisi Ballad It’ll Be Fun But It’ll Never Joyce Eilers Jenson 3 Part Novelty Be Jazz It Might As Well Be Frank Demiero Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Spring Divisi Ballad/ Feature It’s All right With Me Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Med/Up Swing It Don’t Mean A Thing Alan Davies Hal Leonard SATB Up Swing I’ve Got The World On A Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Medium String Divisi Swing I’ve Got Rhythm Jack Kunz Jenson SATB Various Divisi Swing’s I’ve got You Under My Dan Bukvitch Unpublished SATB Swing Skin Divisi I’ve Got You Under My Phil Mattson Hal Leonard SATB Medium Skin Swing Jazz Parade Kenny Kraintz Studio PR SATB Med/Up Swing
292 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style Java Jive Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Medium Swing Jeanine Phil Mattson Columbia SATB Up Pictures Swing Jim, Jam, Jump John Ward Unpublished SATB Funk Divisi Joy Todd Buffa UNC Jazz SATB Fusion Jumpin’ With Symphony Waldo King Studio PR SATB Med/Up Sid Swing Just A Little Bit Of Joyce Eilers Jenson 3 Part Pop Sunshine Just Say Goodbye Anita Kerr MCA SATB/ Ballad SSA Last Blues Song, The Bucholz Unknown SATB Pop Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Swing Love Let It Be Me Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Rock Let Me Be The One Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SATB Pop Ballad Let Me Be There Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SATB Pop Let There Be Love Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Medium Swing Let Your Love Fly Free Roger Emerson Jenson 3 Part Pop Lonesome Road Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard 3 Part Medium Swing Love Is Just Around The Phil Mattson Hal Leonard SATB Medium Corner Divisi Swing Lullaby Of Birdland Kirby Shaw Alfred/ SATB Medium Jenson Swing Making All My Dreams Kenny Kraintz Scott SATB Med/Up Come True Swing Melba’s Blues Waldo King Studio PR SATB Slow Swing Mighty Clouds Of Joy Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Gospel/ Rock Moonglow Teena Chinn Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Ballad More I See You, The Jack Kunz Warner SATB Swing/ Brothers Divisi Ballad Mr. Bojangles Freed Warner SATB/ Jazz Brothers SSA Waltz My Baby Just Cares For Van Auken Hal Leonard SATB Med/Up Me Swing
293 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style My Funny Valentine Vern Swain UNC Jazz SSAA Accap. Ballad My Funny Valentine Dave Barduhn Creative SATB Ballad World Divisi My Romance Gene Puerling Studio PR SATB Accap. Ballad Nearness Of You, The Teena Chinn Famous SSA Accom. Music Corp. Ballad Never Can Say Goodbye Hal Malcolm Unpublished SATB Pop New Orleans Dave Barduhn Scott SATB Accom. Divisi Ballad Nightingale Sanig In Gene Puerling Unpublished SATB Acca. Berkeley Square, A Ballad Ocappella John Ward Unpublished SATB Funk/ Gospel O Happy Day Philip Lillenas SATB Rock/ Doddridge Gospel Oh What A Beautiful Hal Malcolm Unpublished SATB Swing Morning Divisi One Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Musical Once Upon A Dream Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Divisi Ballad One Thought On My Kenny Kraintz Alfred SATB Med/Up Mind Swing Operator Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Shuffle/ Swing Our Day Will Come Teena Chinn Hal Leonard SATB Swing Our Love Is A Joy John Ward Unpublished SATB Medium Divisi Swing Over By The Bay Jack Kunz Jenson SATB Accom. Ballad Over The Rainbow Roger Emerson Jenson SATB Accap. Ballad Painted Rhythm Paul Rugolo Creative SATB Med./Up World Divisi Swing Pink Panther Bob Summers Jenson SATB Up Swing Please Don’t Talk About Dave Barduhn Hal Leonard SATB Swing Me When I’m Gone Divisi Feature Please Don’t Talk About Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Swing Me When I’m Gone Divisi? Please Walk Softly Dave Barduhn Creative SATB Accom. World Divisi Ballad
294 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style Prom King LaBarbera Kendor SATB Swing Raindrops On My Kenny Kraintz Schmitt SATB Accap. Window Ballad Ring The Bells At Scott Scott SATB Med/Up Christmas Frederickson Swing Route 66 Dave Barduhn Hal Leonard SATB Up Divisi Swing Satin Doll Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Medium Swing Save The Bones For Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Medium Henry Jones Swing See You In September Teena Chinn Hal Leonard SATB? Ballad
Send Down The Rain Joyce Eilers Jenson 3 Part Driven Rock Send In The Clowns Dave Barduhn Warner SATB Accom. Brothers Divisi Ballad Shadow Of Your Smile, Vern Swain UNC Jazz SATB Swing The Divisi Shaker Song John Ward Unpublished SATB Latin Jazz Shiny Stockings Susie Mae Unpublished SATB Medium Jones? Divisi Swing Shuffle Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Shuffle Sign Of The Times, A Anita Kerr MCA Music SATB/ Rock SSA Sing Me A Plain Old Jack Kunz Jenson 3 Part Swing Simple Song Sinner Man Roger Emerson Jenson 3 Part Rock Small Fry Gene Puerling Studio PR SATB Slow Swing Some Of These Days Dave Cazier Unpublished SATB Swing Divisi Feature Somebody Loves Me Jack Halloran Warner SATB Med/Up Brothers Swing Somebody Loves Me Rizzo Warner SSA Med/Up Brothers Swing Someone To Watch Over Teena Chinn Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Me Ballad Somewhere Over The Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Ballad/ Rainbow Divisi Medium Swing Song For The Asking Phil Azelton Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Ballad
295 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style Spain Tod Buffa UNC Jazz SATB Fusion/ Latin Jazz Steam Heat Chuck Cassey Frank SATB Musical/ Show Street Of Dreams Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Accom. Ballad String Of Pearls, A Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Medium Swing Summer’s Eyes Are Blue, Kenny Kraintz Alfred SATB Accap. The Ballad Sweet Georgia Brown Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Swing S’Wonderful Phil Mattson Jenson SATB Ballad/ Divisi Up Swing Take Me Home, Country Chuck Cassey Hal Leonard SATB Country Roads Take The A Train Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Med/Up Swing Taking A Chance On Love Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Med/Up Divisi Swing T’aint Nobody’s Biz-Ness Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Slow If I Do Blues That Old Black Magic Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Latin Divisi Jazz/ Swing That’s All Larry McVey Unpublished SATB Multiple Their Hearts Were Full Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Of Spring Ballad Them There Eyes Bill Sanford Bourne SATB Swing There Oughta Be A Law Jack Kunz Jenson SATB Med/Up Swing There Used To Be A Vern Swain UNC Jazz SATB Accap. Ballpark Here Ballad There Will Never Be Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Up Another You Divisi Swing They’re Playing My Song Anita Kerr Hal Leonard SATB Pop/ Musical This Masquerade Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Latin Jazz Ticket To Ride Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SSA Rock Ballad
296 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style Top Of The World Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SSA Rock Ballad Tribute To The Duke, A Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Various Trickle, Trickle Allan Blend SATB Up Billingsley Swing Tuxedo Junction John Ward Unpublished SATB Medium Swing Twelfth Of Never, The Thompson Frank SATB Pop Ballad Twentiana Ades Shawnee SATB Jazz Novelty Waitin’ For The Right Jack Kunz Jenson SSA Med/Up Man Swing Walk On By Carl Strommen Shawnee SATB Rock Way You Look Tonight, Julie Knowles Jenson SATB Accap. The Ballad We Need More Love Otis Skillings Beacon SATB Pop/ Hill Rock We’ve Only Just Begun Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SATB Pop What Are You Doing The Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Accom. Rest Of Your Life? Divisi Feature Ballad What Are You Doing The Larry McVey Unpublished SATB Accom. Rest Of Your Life? Divisi Ballad What The World Needs Jim Jorgenson Unpublished SATB Up Now Divisi Swing When I Fall In Love Phil Azelton Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Divisi Ballad When I Fall In Love Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Accap. Divisi Ballad When I Meet My Man Jack Kunz Hal Leonard SSA Medium Swing Where Is The Love Billingsley Jenson SATB Latin Jazz/ Show Where Or When Dave Cazier Unpublished SATB Medium Divisi Swing
Why Did I Choose You? Dave Barduhn Unpublished SATB Accom. Divisi Ballad Winds Of Love Scott Scott SATB Swing/ Frederickson Latin Jazz
297 Title Arranger Publisher Voicing Style Windy Van Auken Hal Leonard SATB/ Rock SSA Woodchopper’s Ball Brooks Hal Leonard SATB Med/Up Swing Yesterday Once More Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SSA Rock Ballad You Are So Beautiful Teena Chinn Studio PR/ SATB Pop Columbia You Are Too Frank Demiero Unpublished SATB Accap. Beautiful Divisi Ballad You Can Depend On Me John Ward Unpublished SATB Med/Up Divis Swing You Learn To Live With Kenny Kraintz Alfred SATB Blues The Blues You Made Me Love You Gene Puerling Hal Leonard SATB Medium Swing You Needed Me Goodrum Unknown SATB Country Ballad You Won’t See Me Ed Lojeski Hal Leonard SSA Rock Ballad Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Roger Letson Hal Leonard SATB Up Swing 52nd Street Kirby Shaw Hal Leonard SATB Up Swing
298 APPENDIX F
CONFIRMATION OF ORAL HISTORY STATUS
Upon review it has been determined that your protocol is an oral history, which in general, does not fit the definition of “research” pursuant to the federal regulations governing the protection of research subjects. Please be mindful that there may be other requirements such as releases, copyright issues, etc., that may impact your oral history endeavor, but are beyond the purview of this office.
Julie Haltiwanger
Office of Research
299 APPENDIX G
CONSENT FORM FOR STUDY/INTERVIEW PARTICIPATION
History of Vocal Jazz Education in the Boise Valley (1969-1990) Dissertation Richard John Hamilton, researcher and interviewer 323-445-7183/[email protected] Kevin Fenton – Supervising Professor, [email protected]
Date of Interview: ______
Location of Interview: ______
Name of Person Interviewed: ______
The interview in which you are about to participate is part of a dissertation seeking to collect and compile oral histories and information about vocal jazz education and educators in the Boise Valley, Idaho. In this interview I will be asking questions regarding your personal memories and reflections of vocal jazz ensemble singing in the Boise Valley from 1969-1990. I will be audio-recording this interview and possibly taking notes. There is no physical risk to participating in this interview. The length of this interview will not last longer than 2 hours and if you need to rest at anytime that is not a problem.
By signing the form below, you give permission for any recordings and/or transcripts made as a result of this interview to be used for educational purposes, publication purposes, and made available to the public through the World Wide Web. You also grant the right to use the property that is produced and/or obtained as a result of your participation (for example, the interview, ensemble and educator photographs and historical documents, ensemble recordings, and/or written materials) to Richard John Hamilton. By giving your permission, you do not give up any copyright or performance rights you may hold.
I agree to the uses of these materials described above, except for any restrictions, noted below. I understand that participating in this interview is voluntary. Choosing to not participate in this study will not affect any future participation in future studies done by Florida State University or any other organization
Restriction description: ______
Name (please print): ______
Signature: ______
Date: ______
300 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Barduhn, Dave. “Northwest Vocal Jazz Festival Winners.” Mt. Hood Community College. May 2017.
Barduhn, Dave. Oral interview by author. Pasco Washington. April 22, 2017.
Betton, Matt. “Articles of NAJE Organization.” National Association of Jazz Educators Newsletter 1, no. 1 (1968).
Bissett-Perea, Jessica. “Voices From the Jazz Widerness: Locating Pacific Northwest Jazz Choir Culture.” In Jazz/Not Jazz, edited by David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Ira Goldmark, 220. Berkley: University of California Press Berkley, 2012.
Boise High School Choirs. Spring Concert 1986. 1986. Dale Higinson Recording. Cassette.
Boise High School Choirs. Spring Concert 1987. 1987. Don Cedstrum Custom Recording. Cassette.
Boise High School Yearbook. 1984-1985 Courier. 1985. Boise, Idaho.
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Boise High School Yearbook, 1986-1987 Courier, 1987, Boise, Idaho.
Boise State College Department of Music, "Meistersingers Contemporary Chorale (UP 615)" (1972). Department of Music Programs (UP 615). 315. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/music_programs/315
Boise State University Yearbook. “1975 Les Bois.” 1975. Boise, Idaho.
Bonita High School Yearbook. Echoes 1976. 1976. La Verne, California.
Borah High School Yearbook. Safari Volume 10. 1968. Boise, Idaho.
301 Borah High School Yearbook. Safari 73. 1973. Boise, Idaho.
Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 74. 1974. Boise, Idaho.
Borah High School Yearbook. Safari 75. 1975. Boise, Idaho.
Borah High School Yearbook. Safari 76. 1976. Boise, Idaho.
Borah High School Yearbook. Safari 77. 1977. Boise, Idaho.
Borah High School Yearbook, Safari – All That Jazz 81, 1981, Boise, Idaho.
Borah High School Yearbook, Safari 83. 1983. Boise, Idaho.
Borah High School Yearbook. Safari 89 – The Edge. 1989. Boise, Idaho.
Brigham Young University Yearbook. The Banyon 1950. 1950. Provo, Utah.
Brigham Young University Yearbook. Banyan. 1967. Provo, Utah.
Brooks, Dawn Elizabeth. “Vocal Jazz Repertoire From 1920-1960: A Selection of Unpublished Repertoire by the Mills Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, and the Hi-Lo’s for use in Classical Choral Programming.” DMA diss., University of Southern California, 2009. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
Brown-Buetler, Lisa. Online questionnaire by author. January 21, 2017.
Capital High School Yearbook. Talon 3. 1968. Boise, Idaho.
Capital High School Yearbook. Talon Volume IX. 1974. Boise, Idaho.
Capital High School Yearbook. Talon 20th. 1985. Boise, Idaho.
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Capital High School Yearbook. Talon 25th Anniversary Anything Goes. 1990. Boise, Idaho.
Capital Singers, The. On Top Of The World. 1974. Don Cederstrom Custom Recording. LP.
Capital Singers, The. The Capital Singers 1977. 1977. Don Cederstrom Custom Recording. LP.
Capital Singers, The. Over The Rainbow. 1978. Don Cederstrom Custom Recording. LP.
Capital Singers, The. In The Wee Small Hours Hours of the Morning. 1979. Don Cerderstrom Custom Recording. LP.
302 Capital Singers, The. The Capital Singers Take 89. 1989. Walker Brothers Recording. Cassette.
Capital Singers, The. The Capital Singers 1990. 1990. Don Cederstrom Custom Recording.
Centennial High School Yearbook. Sentinel. 1988. Boise, Idaho.
Cline, Lonnie. Oral interview by author. Beaverton, Oregon. December 27, 2016.
Columbia Falls High School Yearbook. The Wildcat. 1970. Columbia Falls, Montana.
Columbia Basin College Jazz Unlimited. Program. Columbia Basin College, Pasco, Washington. 1987.
Creative World Music Publications. “Music For Vocal Jazz Ensemble.” Advertisement. National Association of Jazz Educators Journal, Vol. VI no. 4 (February 1974).
Crowther, Bruce, and Mike Pinfold. 1997. Singing Jazz: The Singer’s and Their Styles. San Farncisco: Miller Freeeman Books.
Department of Music, Boise State University, "Boise State University Meistersingers on Tour (UP 615)" (1974). Department of Music Programs (UP 615). 351. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/music_programs/351
East Junior High School Jazz Night, Program, Boise, Idaho, May 14, 1983.
East Junior High School Yearbook. The Sting 83. 1983. Boise, Idaho.
East Junior High School Yearbook, The Sting 84, 1984, Boise, Idaho.
Elsdon, Peter, (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Jazz. Edited by Mervyn Cooke and David Horn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003.
Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook. The Falcon. 1971, Boise, Idaho.
Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook. The Falcon. 1973. Boise, Idaho.
Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook. The Falcon 78. 1978. Boise, Idaho.
Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook. The Falcon 79, 1979, Boise, Idaho.
Fairmont Junior High School Yearbook. The Falcon. 1986. Boise, Idaho.
Ferriano, Frank. “A Study of the School Jazz Ensemble in American Music Education.” NAJE Educator 7, no.3 (Feb./Mar. 1975).
303 Friedwald, Will. 1990. Jazz Singing. New York: Macmillan.
Gary, C.L., and M.L. Marks, (2007). A History of American Music Education. Plymouth, United Kingdom: The National Association for Music Education. 2007.
Gilk, Catherine. Online questionnaire by author. November 28, 2016.
Grant, Glen. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 10, 2016.
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Hough-Block, Sue. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 14, 2016.
"Idaho Music Educators Association Host Night Concert (UP 615)" (1964). Department of Music Programs. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/music_programs/127.
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King, Waldo. Interview by Brendan McGovern. Transcript. January 2016.
Kull, Robert R. “The Northwest Swing Choir Festival.” NAJE Educator Journal 3, no. 3 (Feb/Mar 1971).
Lapp, Rich. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 20, 2016.
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Luty, Bryce. “Jazz Education’s Struggle for Acceptance.” Music Educators Journal 69, no. 3 (November 1982).
Mad-Jazz Singers, The. The Mad Jazz Singers ’83. 1983. Don Cederstrom Custom Recording. Cassette.
Malcolm, Hal. “Genesis in Vocal Jazz Education. A Chronological Summary of ‘Jazz’ in Vocal- Ensemble Music Education.” Hal Malcolm, Copyright 1998.
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Mason, Colin Michael. “A Comparative and Historical Survey of Four Seminal Figures in the History of Jazz Education.” DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2005, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, (3165100).
304 Mayville High School Yearbook Picture, 1972, mayportcg.com.
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Meridian High School Yearbook. Mana Ha Sa 74. 1974. Meridian, Idaho.
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Monkelien, Sheryl Lynn. “The Influence of Phil Mattson on Vocal Jazz Education in America: A Case Study.” PhD diss.,University of Nebraska, 2001. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
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305 Newburn, Rob. Oral interview by author. Kuna, Idaho. December 16, 2016.
New Plymouth High School Yearbook. Pilgrim “75.” 1975. New Plymouth, Idaho.
New Plymouth High School Yearbook. Reflections. 1979. New Plymouth, Idaho.
New Plymouth High School Yearbook. Pilgrim 84. 1984. New Plymouth, Idaho.
New Plymouth High School Yearbook. Pilgrim 85. 1985. New Plymouth, Idaho.
New Dimensions, The. The New Dimensions in Concert.” 1983. Live Recording at Meridian High School. Cassette.
Northwest MENC All-Northwest Convention. Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, Portland Oregon, February 18, 1973. Performances by the Mount Hood Community College and Roosevelt Senior High School Vocal Jazz Ensembles
Northwest Nazarene University Yearbook. Oasis. 1964. Nampa, Idaho.
Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program. Mount Hood Community College. Gresham, Oregon. May 22, 1971.
Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program. Mount Hood Community College. Gresham, Oregon. May 17, 1974.
Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program. Mount Hood Community College. Gresham, Oregon. May 19, 1979.
Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program. Mount Hood Community College. Gresham, Oregon. May, 17, 1980.
Northwest Swing Choir Festival. Mount Hood Community College. Gresham, Oregon. May 22, 1982.
Northwest Swing Choir Festival Program. Mount Hood Community College. Gresham, Oregon. May 21, 1983.
Oldenburg, Barb. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 20, 2016.
Olson, Paul. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 15, 2016.
Oshkosh High School Yearbook. The Notebook ’65. 1965. Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Pisciotta, Eva Mae. “The History of Jazz Choir in the United States.” DMA diss., University of Missouri – Kansas City, 1992. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
306 Schmidt, Linda. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 9, 2016.
Shipton, Alyn. 2007. A New History of Jazz. New York: Continuum.
Stuber, Charles. “The Summer Jazz Clinics: A Memoir and a Salute.” NAJE Educator Journal 14, no.4 (Apr/May 1982).
Swain, Vern. Oral interview by author. Evanston, Wyoming. December 13, 2016.
Tangen-Foster, Laurel Jean. “The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and the Continuance of the Jazz Legacy A Qualitative Study.” (PhD diss., University of Idaho, 1996).
Totorica, Ted. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 19, 2016.
University of Wyoming Yearbook. WYO Nineteen Sixty-Four (Volume 51). 1964. Laramie, Wyoming.
Vale High School Yearbook, The Viking, 1984, Vale, Oregon.
Van Paepeghem, Quinn. Oral interview by author. Boise, Idaho. December 19, 2016.
Vevig, Jerry. Oral interview by author. Star, Idaho. December 21, 2016.
Walker Bruce. Oral interview by author. Caldwell, Idaho. December 17, 2016.
Walla Walla High School Yearbook. The1969 Royal Blue. 1969. Walla Walla, Washington.
Wells, Dana F.”Choral Materials,” NAJE Educator Newsletter II, no.1, (April /May 1969).
Wells, Dana F. “Choral Aids: Ideas, Methods, Materials For Choral Jazz Development.” National Association of Jazz Educators Journal 8, no. 4 (April/May 1976).
West Junior High School Yearbook. Montesa 71. 1971. Boise, Idaho.
West Junior High School Yearbook. Montesa 75. 1975. Boise, Idaho.
West Junior High School Yearbook. Montesa 76. 1976. Boise, Idaho.
West Junior High School Yearbook. Montesa 82. 1982. Boise, Idaho.
West Junior High School Yearbook. Montesa 86. 1986. Boise, Idaho.
307 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Richard John Hamilton graduated cum laude from Central Washington University in
1992 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education. Following graduation from CWU, he taught in the state of Idaho for seven years at Centennial (3 years) and Eagle (4 years) High
School’s for Joint School District Number Two (currently known as the West Ada school district). In 2000, Hamilton moved to Los Angeles, California to join the faculty of the
Hamilton High School Academy of Music (LAUSD) where he taught for thirteen years. While at Hamilton the chamber choir was selected to sing for Regional and National Conventions of the American Choral Director’s Association and the vocal jazz ensemble sang for the
International Association of Jazz Educators three times. The vocal jazz ensemble was also the recipient of seven downbeat awards presented by Downbeat Magazine during his tenure at Hamilton High School. Hamilton earned his Master’s Degree in Choral Conducting from California State University, Los Angeles in 2013 and enrolled at Florida State
University in the fall of 2014 where he is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education and Choral Conducting degree.
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