The Punishers

I was reading in the Dallas Morning News a few days ago about the immanent retirement of Neil Slater, chair of Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas. As a former Bachelor of Arts music major at UNT, I breathed a sigh of relief. I have never met the man, but befriended many students who had borne the brunt of the jazz faculty's unique brand of negative reinforcement and unforgiving perfectionism (percussion prof Ed Soph, for instance, was known for commanding nervous performers to take beta blockers). So imagine my satisfaction when the 7/6/08 article by David Flick commemorating the end of Slater's 27-year tenure (too long for any chairpersonship, really) was comprised primarily of student reactions telling it like it is:

Tim Ries, a former student whose résumé includes stints with Maynard Ferguson and the Rolling Stones, played in the One O'Clock Lab Band when Mr. Slater took over in 1981.

"He very definitely put his own stamp on it," Mr. Ries said. "He gave us the freedom to play, but he could be very brutally honest with the students."

Even his praise sometimes had an edge.

Mr. Ries was on Mr. Slater's first European tour with the band in the early 1980s, when they played some of the most prestigious venues on the continent, often sharing billing with the biggest names in jazz.

"I remember one day we were on the bus, and we were behaving like typical 20-year-olds, like we were teenagers on a vacation with their parents," he said.

When the bus arrived at the Antibes Jazz Festival, the group saw its name on a poster that also included Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson and Ron Carter.

"These people were our heroes," Mr. Ries recalled, "and he pointedly said, 'For some of you, this may be the pinnacle of your careers.'

Flick continues:

More recent students say Mr. Slater hasn't mellowed.

Evan Weiss, who graduated this year, said, "If something sounds bad, he'll tell you it sounds bad."

But he said Mr. Slater's background as a musician gives credibility to his judgments.

"I guess the fact that Neil is a writer, he has an honest perception of what he wants the band to sound like. When he gives you a suggestion, it's not done as a pedagogue," Mr. Weiss said.

Still, he said, Mr. Slater could be intimidating to a young musician.

"When I was a freshman just joining the band, he handed me the book [of pieces the group would perform], and said, 'Don't mess this up.' "

These instructors’ values are antithetical to the spirit of jazz as I understand it. They are following an anxiety-ridden programme of canonizing pre-fusion repertoire, creating museum pieces out of a living, breathing art form, technically brilliant but ultimately soulless. I'll take the camaraderie and risk-taking of jazz musicians trained at UCLA (where I served as a teaching assistant for the pre-eminent jazz composer, arranger, and conductor Gerald Wilson) over UNT's top-down robot-making any day.

But don't take my word for it...talk to the hundreds of former UNT jazz students who’ve dropped out before completing their degree. This top-notch talent pool got out while they could and have done extraordinary well for themselves as professional musicians (look at Norah Jones!). My friend's burgeoning strategy of enrolling in the program in order to receive just enough training and the credential of having "studied at UNT" has probably become de rigeur. Because no one with any self respect and a true love of jazz would allow any instructor to break them down so thoroughly as to ensure there is no "self" left to color the music they play and sing. Jazz was born from spontaneity, breaking free from convention, and individualism. The time is nigh for marginalizing old white men with axes to grind so that they no longer rain on the parade.