Teaching A Taste For Jazz In A Hip Hop Age

(CBS)  They are young, gifted and surprisingly, just beginning to learn about jazz. Surprising, because this is Harlem, the cradle of jazz.

"You know what's great about a jazz solo," a teacher tells a class of students. "It's yours."

Every Thursday, a Harlem community center becomes a music school for prodigies like 8-year old Jalen Wilson, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

"I think, well, it's mostly maybe an instinct," Wilson said.

That instinct is something Jalen's teacher, Shamie Roylston knows is rare -- especially in young people today.

"It's kind of tough thing to get kids motivated if they aren't really sure what jazz is like," Royston said. "They really have to be motivated by people around them."

Wynton Marsalis knows that all too well. He is in the middle of the battle for the soul of young black musicians.

"Sometimes you have to question your own values and that is the point we are in as a culture right now, we are in a crucial moment, in our cultural history" Marsalis said.

"You're talking hip hop?" Pinkston asked.

"Man I'm talking any of that trash," Marsalis replied.

But it's a fight jazz seems to be losing. Compared to all musical genres, the market for jazz dropped from 3.4 per cent in 2001 to 1.8 per cent in 2005.

Other signs of waning popularity -- fewer jazz radio stations and clubs and pricier venues instead of low cost neighborhood bars. Most jazz happens in concert halls for well-heeled audiences.

Still, Marsalis is confident that jazz has a future.

When asked how he gets young people interested in jazz, who, given the freedom to purchase what they want, would probably go and buy hip-hop, Marsalis replied, "Man, you know I keep hearing that, but I've been teaching young people for 30 years in this country. The question for us is why do we provide that for them, why is that our national art, why, what is the advantage of it?"

He's raised millions of dollars to fund jazz outreach, like his Essentially Ellington program, an annual competition for young musicians to teach the value of jazz.

That's value the class in Harlem's community center is just beginning to learn, and one that may last a lifetime.

[dixxson-2009]

GANGSTAS & MINSTRELS! I like that, I have
always said a rapper was a coon show!
M L King was gone. Jessie Jackson didn''t say
nuthin, NAACP, Al Sharpton.
I heard one little caramel colured middled aged
lady and guitarist singer George Benson were the only people to complain on tv when ***"" first
started. Now that it has destroyed our clubs,
our social life, our music, our homes and neighborhoos, one person who is not captive of the hood spoke up.
Bill Cosby. And another one that doesn''t
live there university professor, chittling eating
flat earth preacher, Michael Eric Dyson jumps all
over the COS, and writes a stupid book.
Without this new Hip Hop subculture, reverse
music, and primeval speech, Miacael Vick would
have been deemed uncool, and with his millions
Ridicolous but when that word is your theme!

[neobrian-2009]

St. Louis had a Fabulous " Smooth Jazz " station until about 18 months ago.But,it`s gone now,Wow !!
What does this tell you? When a Bluesy Jazzy city such as St. Louis can`t keep a great station on the air.
What goes in your head comes out in your daily walk. Is the music of todays` youth our future ?

[oakishpines]

'' ... folk are kindof flockish, tell them to kill all those folk or slave all those folk and they do, tell them to stop and they do, tell them to invest all their money and votes in non charity and taxation and they do, tell them to stop and they do ... ''


'' ... it seems cruel, all this hoopla about some tiny wealthy minority with all the market share, all for the benefit of the impoverished masses that aren''t allowed any market share, for their own good, it''s not cruel of course, it makes perfect sense, it really is for their own good, look at them, they are the impoverished masses ... ''


'' ... running in screamming dare ya dare ya, shock and awe ya shock and awe ya, babies get raped, that''s not the point of the whole thing though, the point of raping all those babies, is to stop those that claim to saive babies while they run around secretly raping babies ... ''

[brianbwb-2009]

Anyone who has been to a jazz festival, or one of the few jazz clubs still in existence knows that "Jazz" is nowhere near dying. The "mainstream" is more interested in pushing talking barbie like Britney Spears, or effeminate back street boy types and "thuganomics" to prepubescents, so the airwaves are filled with this stuff.

Of course, since Reagan''s "trickle down thuganomics" has decimated the middle class, fewer have the discretionary cash to enjoy a jazz club, so they close down, slowly becoming extinct.

This does not, however, mean that "jazz" is dead, witness artists like Jill Scott and Alicia Keys incorporating it into their own music, in the true spirit of jazz, which has always been a product of evolution.

"Jazz" experienced its decline because the white owned media did not like the prospect of "Black" superstars, as blues only gained media access when "white" artists learned to copy it, calling the result "rock and roll".

If we could only break the monopoly of the mainstream media and give jazz equal exposure, it would again outshine and out sell rock, country, and pop, but as of now, the mainstream only accepts "Black" contributions if it serves to make "Black" people look to the whole world like gangstas, and other unsavory minstrel types.

[oakishpines]

'' ... if i starve, don''t let it be in a jurisdiction of non charity and taxation ... ''

'' ... the more big empire must be no more big than the more little one: most market share must go to the poorest soul, not the malnourished pauper, but the trillion dollar war lord ... if the militant baby girl may have her claim to all in the land, then that man too may rest easy ... ''

'' ... giving away free advertising to many entrepreneurs for small tips from a few is the ultimate capitalist adventure ... ''

'' ... don''t dance porno hike naked dance dressed get sick tax world get well feed world songs rallied round tens millions sick beds drifting tens millions studio cottage farm trail groups ... ''

'' ... eternal storyboards swimming infinite oceans of eternal storyboards ... ''

'' ... gathering wealth has little to do with harvesting at the neighbors but with assuring the neighbors have plenty to harvest ... ''

'' ... if the war cannot be won with a song and dance, then the war cannot have been won even having won it: what tommorow all will take for granted they will take for granted despite the presence or absence of a war ... ''

'' ... people don''t throw themselves off the backs of dragon to break all their bones for fun, silly ... ''

[oakishpines]

'' ... if someone in my jurisdiction is going to starve to death, it will not be in a jurisdiction of non charity and taxation, it well be in a jurisdiction of charity and non taxation ... ''



'' ... success, and indeed survival, depends upon one thing: the big empire must be no more big than the little empire ... that is to say: the most market share must go to the poorest soul ... it is no coin toss which soul is the most poor: it is not the malnourished pauper, it is the multi trillion dollar war lord ... if that militant baby girl can eat and have her market share and claim to all in the land, then that man, as well, may rest easy ... ''


'' ... giving away free advertising to many entreprenuers for small tips from a few is the ultimate capitalist adventure ... ''

'' ... don''t dance porno hike naked dance dressed get sick tax world get well feed world songs rallied round the tens millions sick beds drifting the tens millions studio cottage farm trail groups ... ''

'' ... eternal storyboards swimming infinite oceans of eternal storyboards ... ''

'' ... gathering wealth has little to do with harvesting at the neighbors and everything to do with assuring that the neighbors have plenty to harvest ... ''

[mitywhity]

Thank you Wynton! I hope you prevail when music so desperately needs direction. Talent has taken a back seat to image and music writing has degraded to empty rhymes with a catchy hook. Vandross and Pavarotti have both passed and it seems like all the figureheads from the age of true music are disappearing all too fast! Keep on blowing that brass Wynton!