3rd year Jazz School - Yikes!I'm

I'm now 6 weeks into my 3rd year at the American Music School of Modern Music and man... it's really swinging.  The work load is incredible but at the same time, it's amazing to be at a level where I'm actually handling all this. It shows how much progress I've made in the past two years.

I had only planned on staying two years, but everyone talked about the third year of this program as being the pinnacle and best year. I realize now why they all said this. It's as if we laid the ground work down for years in order to be ready for this year. 

We are playing in ensembles every week, working on jazz standards in different key signatures, and different time signatures. The tempos are fast and of coarse everything must be memorized.

Then we are doing dictees constantly... using only our ear to transcribe melodies, harmonies, solos and memorized tunes into different keys. No instruments, only ears and memories.

Then we are memorizing and singing solos of jazz greats as well as transcribing... as well as listening to a wide selection of important jazz albums from Wayne Shorter to Charlie Parker. We are to really listen and know solos, who played and be able to name them in the Drop the Needle exams when small excerps are played.

Finally there is an arranging class. Meaning writing scores and parts for jazz standards to be played in our unique interpretation. 

Though I had a panic attack last week (crise angoise) I seem to be managing the load so far, including working about 20-30 hours a week. My hands and my mind are surprising me, rising to the demands of the occasion. And I guess that's what's best about going to school... is being pushed in a positive manner towards a new level of musicianship and confidence where i know that I'll be able to meet any musical occasion with style and swing.

I hope by the end of the year my ears are much more attuned and my hands and voice much more able to play the music as I hear it.  And of coarse, I hope that I can serve the music and the musicians in a selfless yet unique manner. 

Why Jazz School in Paris?

I have been asked this question so many times... and I never quite have a reason. It was just the obvious path for me, combining two dreams, studying jazz, and living in Paris.  This city doesn't seem to have the cutting edge jazz of today, like New York or even Montreal. 

But it does have a long history of liberating jazz musicians, giving them a place to be free to express themselves.  Back in the 1920's - 50's many black jazz cats came to Paris because they were treated like kings and queens here, no prejudice to color their fame.

I love history, I love tradition. But I also love the path less taken, so for me the choice to come to music school at all was a total twist of fate. All the musicians I know back home learned from pure playing.  It might make take a good 20 years, but they get their chops with out ever stepping into school. 

I guess I felt I didn't have that kind of time, being that I started again at 24. Also I wanted a few years to give priority to studying music, not just studying after my day job was finished. Whether school turned out to be good or not, I knew my own discipline would have to be the key to using the time wisely. I thought two years would be plenty... and well truth is in that two years I learned more than I could have possibly imagined. I learned so much that I decided to stay for a 3rd year, to give myself the boast that intensive study and healthy competition yields. My sights are set higher than I ever could have imagined before I started school two years ago at the American School Of Modern Music. 

My first year was terrifying. I had a bulldog instructor Peter Giron, from the Bronx, who scared the shit out of me. He was every nightmare I ever had about going to music school. My creativity seemed to dry up, my confidence gone, as critique after critique, week after week.   But he knew his stuff, and had a heart of gold and by the end of the year I realized that he saw more in me that I saw in myself. And he wouldn't give up on me. I grew a thicker skin, and saw that when I let go of the emotions I could learn new skills quickly. and hence the reason for the school, they are there to help you progress as quickly and deeply as possibly.

The American School of Modern Music is a small school here in Paris. I found it on the internet and had no idea what type of quality i was paying for. But the school is cheaper than anything in the states, the teachers are TOP NOTCH!!!! the curriculum based on Berkley in Boston and the classes are small.  All these factors make up for the fact that it's kinda a shit hole campus, and no prestige in the name.  It's kinda ghetto as a french guy told me (with a french accent) but that's suits when you are trying to learn jazz. The good stuff was born of the ghetto, or more so that place where you have nothing left but your soul to count on.

Being here alone in paris, working shit jobs to make money, having only my own soul to count on, well I think I've learned the spirit of Jazz here better than I could have anywhere else. School has helped my technique and Paris has helped me get to know my soul. I am now more free to express fully the music as I hear it.  Whether anyone would classify that as jazz or not, is not my concern. I just strive to be integris, in the great tradition of jazz.

Composition Projects

3 times a year, we compose an original piece under set guidelines... like must be a blues swing, 12 bars, using only theory as far as we covered in school. 

Then we arrange the piece with bass, drums, and other designated instruments.on On the day the composition is due, the piece is played by students of upper levels who are practicing their site reading abilities. It's quite exciting and fun, and of coarse I've learned a lot.

These are two of the projects that happen to get recorded by friends.