Music Library Reading Room Notes
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Music Library Reading Room Notes Issue no.4 & 5 (2001-20) University Libraries The University of the Arts Compiled by the Music Library Staff Mark Germer: Music Librarian Lars Halle & Aaron Meicht: Circulation Supervisors The Origins and Development of Jazz at UArts: p.2 Conversations with School of Music Faculty Who’s Afraid of the Big Band Wolf? p.9 CCMIX 2001-02 p.11 In Retrospect p.14 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, p.16 2nd Edition: A Review The University of the Arts . 320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19102 http://www.uarts.edu University Libraries: http://library.uarts.edu The Origins and Development of Jazz at UArts: Conversations with School of Music Faculty by Music Library Staff On four different occasions between May were students already playing jazz. We and November 2002, the Music Library were always trying to start something. I staff asked individual members of the full- had experience in starting big bands from time music faculty to reminisce about the when I was a junior in high school. There development of jazz performance and was a University of Pennsylvania gradu- instruction in the School of Music. The ate [student] named Jimmy DePreist [now same questions were put to Profs. Evan well-known as an orchestra conductor] Solot, Ron Kerber, Bill Zaccagni, and Marc who was also a drummer. When I was Dicciani, although our conversations were in high school I called him, and he said separate, and the responses naturally em- he would get together a youth band if we phasized different areas of interest. Here would take care of auditioning. We put up we have compiled their answers, editing notices in all the high schools around the them for concision and clarity. Also we city and set up auditions. Vince Trombet- have spelled out abbreviated titles, cor- ta played in that band. So, when I came rected a few names without comment, to PMA, I worked toward two degrees, a and reconciled conflicting dates when we music education degree with a trumpet could identify them. Throughout we have major and an applied music degree with tried to preserve the informal tone of the a composition major. I was studying com- conversations. position with [Professor] Joseph Castaldo. During my senior year we talked him into letting us have a big band for no credit We asked about the early years. under the guidance of a faculty member, MD: More than anybody, Evan Solot is Peter Lewis, a theory teacher who played the single person credited with champion- some jazz piano. ing the jazz program. And championing is probably a suitable descriptor because during those years there was a great sen- MD: When I was in high school one of timent against such things. There was a the best jazz festivals in the country was lot of resistance to it early on, mostly philo- held nearby at Villanova [University]. I sophical, not so much budgetary. Certain- went out there on two occasions to hear ly in those days jazz was not a respected the PMA Big Band play, and they won area of conservatory study. the festival [competition]. They also had a small group; Mike Pedicin, Evan, Jimmy Paxson, Stanley Clarke, Sunnie Paxson ES: I came to the Philadelphia Musical and maybe a few other students also Academy as a student during the years played. But that was a student-organized 1962 through 1967. When I was a student thing. They won the festival competition there was some jazz but it was not officially for small group too, and that was a pretty recognized by the school. The saxophon- prestigious thing. They had also gone to ist Vince Trombetta and the trumpet player the Glassboro Jazz Festival. I knew of the Mike Natale were both at the school. They PMA Big Band because I was keenly inter- ested in coming to the School; my teacher, imprimatur from the School, as in the of- Paul Patterson, was also the teacher of ficial name Philadelphia Musical Academy Jimmy Paxson, in those days a legend. Festival Band. They were playing and re- [University of] Notre Dame at that point hearsing, but they weren’t going out and hosted the “finals” of college jazz festivals. representing the school and they wanted It was one of the most important [competi- to. 1967 was the year that they asked for tions] in the country and the PMA Big Band and got the official “ok” from the School went there a couple of times. to use the name. Joseph Castaldo, who was president during those years, was first and foremost a composer and didn’t really BZ: I knew Evan Solot from when I was have anything against jazz. He liked Evan a in high school. Evan studied trumpet with lot and he liked the people who were play- my high school band director who was ing and teaching jazz. So he kind of took on faculty at PMA--Tony Marchione--and up the charge a little bit and allowed it to Evan used to write arrangements for our grow. high school jazz band. BZ: I was still in college at Temple Uni- We then asked how the program began to versity at the time. In 1967 they didn’t take formal shape. have a saxophone major at PMA. It wasn’t until the next year that Vince Trombetta started the saxophone major. Until then, if ES: The year after I graduated, Castaldo students wanted to play saxophone they decided to experiment and offer the Big would come in as clarinet majors with a Band for credit. I was teaching in the Phila- saxophone minor. There were few college delphia Public Schools, and came down jazz programs around at that point; basi- here two afternoons a week and rehearsed cally, North Texas State [University] had a the band offered for credit for the first time. program since 1947--they had the “Dance Well, what happened was that we had all Band” major, as it was called--and Berk- this success in the first year, with maga- lee [College of Music] was already in ex- zines writing about and praising our great istence. As far as I know there were not band! Castaldo was looking for a worthy many schools of music trying to build any pursuit as another extension of getting the kind of jazz program. I was envious, be- school’s name “out there” and attracting ing at Temple, because we were barely al- people. lowed to say the word [jazz] there. MD:The band was pretty famous then, RK: Vince Trombetta’s background was and they brought a lot of notoriety to the “classical”, but he was a great jazz musi- School, not all of which was well received cian and commercial musician, so when by the rest of the faculty. Some of them he started the sax major it was an “Ameri- were becoming concerned that PMA was can Saxophone” major as opposed to a becoming known as a school that pro- classical or jazz major. You learned how to moted or condoned this “jazz” thing. This play saxophone and woodwinds in order is the time that the festival we are now to make a living. I started as a student here planning is designed to commemorate. in the fall of 1975. But I’d made my mind So, 35 years ago the students had a band, up in ninth grade that I wanted to be part of but what they wanted to have was the that. The faculty always had a reputation, and it still does: those are the guys who the benefit of the students. Just being in are playing. The guys who are teaching that stimulating environment was some- are also the guys performing throughout thing you can’t get from a recording or a the area. At least in terms of jazz and score or a book. commercial music. This was a place that there was a lot of buzz about. It was the place where there were ensembles per- RK: There was a division. There is still a forming really good jazz, and where the division. As open-minded as this school teachers were good jazz musicians. was, there was a division that often hap- pens when people are fearful of their own territory. There was a jazz snobbery, and ES: There was even a time when we what I would call a “classical” snobbery had three big bands and lots of small that existed in the mid ‘70s and later. There groups. And the thing that was differ- were so-called “legitters” and “jazzers”, ent then--that I miss--is that the same but there were also good musicians who people who played in the Big Band also crossed over, playing in both jazz groups played in the orchestra, and that was and in new music ensembles and in the such a wonderful thing to have. It was orchestra. so much richer. In those days there were more people, say woodwind players, who were more interested in being “doublers” As the program continued to evolve, local than they are today, because they could interest from outside the School grew. make a living in the theater. I remember a saxophone player named Alfie Williams-- he later played with Mongo Santamaria- BZ: I left school and went on the road -who also played flute and bassoon. The for a year with a bus-and-truck-tour classical teachers who were sensitive to Broadway show called Promises, Prom- jazz--such as Adeline Tomassone, a flute ises.