Vision for the Friends of Jazz
In Kenny Burrell's mind, there are only two kinds of music: "good and the other kind." All the other categories are just window dressing, or worse: ways to build a hierarchy where none should exist.
"Even if we have a preference for one kind of music or the other," Professor Burrell says, "we have to rid ourselves of preconceived ideas that one kind of music is better than another."
The comparison of primary concern is jazz versus what many people refer to as classical music, the idea being that only music composed, often centuries ago, by white Europeans and Americans, most of them men, deserves to be taken seriously. Jazz, composed mostly in the last century by men and women of African, Latino, and white ancestry, is every bit as sophisticated and meritorious.
"Ironically, the world has seen the importance of this music, jazz, before the United States has," Professor Burrell says. "It's a phenomenon that was born in this country and that has changed the sound of music forever. Part of our mission in Jazz Studies is to educate people about the inside story of this highly developed art form called jazz."
Knowledge will lead to appreciation and finally to appropriate recognition, Professor Burrell hopes.
If this is the overriding mission of Jazz Studies, Professor Burrell also has more pragmatic goals. One is "to turn out musicians who can go out and compete in the jazz world." Jazz Studies is already meeting this goal. In the future, Professor Burrell would like to broaden the academic offerings in composition, arranging and orchestration, and some areas of historical context. He would also like to bring more workshops, clinics, and guest artists into the program and to offer students more scholarships and travel funds so they can perform for audiences outside Los Angeles.
A long-range project-"a dream of mine"-is to establish a graduate program offering a master's degree and a PhD in Jazz Studies. There's plenty of interest from students in such a program, and faculty in the Department of Ethnomusicology and elsewhere are ready to help develop the necessary courses.
All of these goals will draw support from Friends of Jazz at UCLA, an organization of people "who love the music and want to see young musicians develop and who care about UCLA," Professor Burrell says, "and they're all friends of mine."
In the meantime, Kenny Burrell does what he can and feels optimistic. "More and more people are thinking that jazz is an art form worthy of study, worthy of research, worthy of education, worthy of support, worthy of sponsorship and donation," he says. "I just feel good about it."