The Hampton festival’s core purpose is the development of young jazz musicians. Students from several states converge here to play in big bands and combos, vying for group and individual honors. Nearly 400 youngsters competed in the final day’s events. Before the professionals played on Saturday evening, we heard student winners in several categories.
In competitions across the country it has become predictable that Seattle’s Roosevelt and Garfield High Schools will be among the top big bands. Indeed, they often place one-two. In Moscow, Garfield, under director Clarence Acox, edged Roosevelt, under Scott Brown, for first place and performed in the big hall. Then, fifteen winners in the Outstanding Student Instrumentalist category lined up across the stage in front of a rhythm section. Each played two choruses of “C-Jam Blues.” There was a tie in only one category, between alto saxophonists John Cheadle of Garfield and Logan Strosahl of Roosevelt. The two played together in middle school, but went to separate high schools, each developing impressively. Results in all categories of student competition are posted on the Hampton Festival web site.
Music students from middle schools, high schools and colleges all over the United States and abroad flock to the the Hampton festival and to the jazz education components of other institutions. Undoubtedly, a number who come here and to The Centrum Port Townsend Bud Shank workshop, Jamey Aebersold’s camps, programs of The Commission Project and at least a dozen other such ventures are simply enjoying pleasurable school activities. An appreciable percentage of them, however, plan careers in music. Many of them would like to be professional jazz musicians. Given the low receptivity of the public to jazz, and the resulting economic reality, it is certain that there will not be enough work to provide a living to more than a lucky few. Except during the big band era, that has always been as true in jazz as it is in, say, the classical chamber music business.
Still, here is a puzzle. Thousands of children go through jazz education programs in the schools and colleges. One presumes that they develop knowledge and appreciation, perhaps even love, of the music. These programs have been flourishing for a long time, twenty or thirty years. Why hasn’t that resulted in an expansion of the audience for jazz clubs, concerts and record sales? Let’s suppose that the widely publicized estimates of jazz CD sales as three percent of the total are low. Even if those sales were five percent, shouldn’t the jazz education movement of the past few decades have stimulated greater demand? Do the kids go home from these programs, revert to rock, hip-hop and rap, grow into adulthood and never pursue the higher interests to which they were exposed? I don’t have the answers to these disturbing questions. I don’t know that there are answers, but this is a fertile area for a PhD candidate in economics, business or music searching for a thesis topic or a reporter who can talk his editor into a long investigative project.
As always, comments are encouraged and welcome.