Jazz History Course

[CJ Shearn]

Jim, great comments about Jimmy Smith. I talked a bit about Jimmy when I was TA'ing the jazz course and played some of his music. The first time around, for whatever reason his sound got some laughs and ppl whispering to each other like, "what is this"? We also used the Burns doc, mainly for historical insight, we never considered it a comprehensive history by any means. Oh yeah, regarding the text we used for the class the Concise Guide to Jazz, by Mark Gridley, he only mentions Jimmy as selling a high number of records, stupid isn't it?

[Leeway]

The curriculum of the course under discussion looks reasonable to me. I don't see any racial bias at work there, and I'm reluctant to attribute any such bias to a teacher who is unknown to me (and even then...).

I'm with Mike Fitzgerald on this: when teaching just about any subject matter, some things are just going to have be left out. I taught (English) for about 5 years and that was always an issue. I think most teachers will tell their students to explore beyond the curriculum and will often set up in-class projects for students to present subject matter not included in the formal curriculum, or accept such projects for term papers.

[chris olivarez]

A good idea Leeway.

[Jazzmoose]

I took a one quarter jazz history course (12 weeks, two nights of four hours each), and believe me, there's only so much you can cover. Our instructor didn't bother going past the sixties other than a little fusion (all I can remember is Bitches Brew). I can understand this; it's damned hard to cover jazz after hard bop with a limited time, and tracing the early development has to be done.

I think the best you can expect of any jazz history course is that either it gets the student interested, or if they're already interested, it gives them some 'step off points' for further exploration. These survey courses can't possibly give one a solid background on any subject; education on anything is a life long process, not a one quarter shot at learning it all...

(Aside to Jim: no, we didn't cover any organ trios either. But I can't complain about the course; it certainly lit the fire, and I'll always be grateful to the instructor. No matter how much the wife complains...)

[Jim Alfredson]

I realize time constraints are an issue, but not to even mention Jimmy Smith is a crime. Leaving out an entire instrument and sub-genre, especially one that had a profound effect on modern music (not just jazz, but blues, rock, country, etc), is simply irresponsable.