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.