I am writing to invite you to become a member of the Jazz String Caucus. We have been an organization since this past January, when 10 of us met at the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference in New Orleans. Since then we have made major strides in our efforts to reach out to jazz and string educators.
Anyhow, I would like to ask you to join the Jazz String Caucus because you are quite familiar with all of the problems faced by the rest of the string family (besides the bass) in joining the rest of the jazz/improvising world. Our many members include David Baker, Darol Anger (IAJE String Chair), Matt Glaser, Randy Sabien, John Clayton, and Glenn Basham. I know that you would be a terrific addition to our group. Non-IAJE jazz string players are very welcome. Please join us.
There were over seven thousand attendees at the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference in New Orleans this past January. There were only two string related events at that event. Those were school bands that included strings. We had no clinics representing strings at all except any panel or talk with David Baker. This year will be quite different.
Those string educators who can attend will be meeting in a closed session at
the IAJE New York convention in January of 2001 to discuss teacher-training,
methodology (and related improvisational goals-oriented methods),
publications, literature, etc. You are welcome to attend or to email or
hard-copy your questions and comments to me or any of us. Some of us will
also be playing in a "professional" jazz string band led by University of
South Carolina's Bert Ligon as a demo clinic for jazz educators attending
the convention. That should be really fun to hear! We will have an all star
panel on "How To Make Strings A Part of Every Jazz Program" headed up by
Sheri Margrave.
In addition to the String band clinic (Jazz Strings:
Integrating String Players Into The Jazz Curriculum) two more clinics with
strings will be featured: jazz violin prodigy Sara Caswell's "Transferring
Horn Idiomaticisms to String Improvisation" and "Fiddling & Jazz: Closer
Than You Think". Darol Anger, Matt Glaser, and Sheri Margrave are giving the
latter clinic, it should be great.
Concerts featuring strings, both professional and students, include two performances by the Metropole
Orchestra from the Netherlands and a concert with the Belmont Jazz String
Quartet (coached by Martin Norgaard). There will be plenty of amazing
clinics, concerts, and panels by excellent jazz teachers and performers
(more than anyone can possibly attend). I look forward to attending and hope
to see you there!
The 2001 IAJE will be held in NYC January 10-13, 2001 at the New York Hilton & New York Sheraton Hotels. Here is the URL site for the information: http://www.iaje.org/iaje99/Announcement.asp?ttl=3
If you are interested in attending the conference in New York, please contact Bert Ligon so that you can play in the jazz string orchestra. Here is his recent email on the topic:
"The IAJE committee has approved the concert for the IAJE String Caucus Ensemble. I am requesting a Friday or Saturday session. If that is a problem for anyone, please let me know. I will also request some rehearsal space & time!
These musicians have confirmed willingness to perform. As you can see, the group is top heavy. I would like some violas, or some cellists who can play some higher parts (I'll put it in comfortable clefs!). If there are those I have left off the list, or any changes or recommendations, please let me know ASAP.
I will need mailing addresses for all performers so I can send music ahead of time.
Violin
Darol Anger
Glenn Basham
Matt Glaser
Reva Kuzmich
Sherry Margrave
Martin Norgaard
Tracy Silverman
Martha Mooke
Julie Lyonn Lieberman
Christian Howes
Sara Carls Caswell
Viola
Tanya Kalmanovitch
Cello
Renata Bratt
Christine Harrington
BASS
Brian Torff
Please contact for this project::
Bert Ligon
Director of Jazz Studies
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Phone: 803.777.6565
Fax: 803.777.2151
email: BLigon@mozart.music.sc.edu
Here is the current version of our mission statement:
"The Jazz String Caucus is dedicated to assuring the continued growth and development of string jazz and jazz education by promoting improvisational skills for all string players, and by providing specialized string curriculum, training, and resource information to string and jazz educators.
"The Jazz String Caucus provides guidance to educators regarding curricula and performance; assists teachers and practitioners with relevant resources; and takes an active role in organizing clinics, festivals and symposia at local, regional, national and international levels. The Jazz String Caucus makes its services available both within the auspices of IAJE programs as well as to the community of string teachers and players at large.
"The Jazz String Caucus believes that interest in jazz on strings is greater than ever before, and that there exists a tremendous and largely unmet demand for educational resources. The Jazz String Caucus therefore strives to make a basic improvisational fluency available to every string player: a skill that we believe is essential in nurturing the complete musical development of the twenty-first century string player.ä
You can read some of the streams of emails associated with the Jazz String Caucus/IAJE String Board here: www.darolanger.com/iajestringcaucus.html
You can join the jazz string caucus intranet and keep posted with our doings here:
Here's how to join...
1. Go to http://jazzstringcaucus.intranets.com/register_member.asp
2. Fill out the information on the new member form using the Registration Code: 123456 3. That's it!
Just make sure that when you enter the Registration Code, you type it just like it's shown above because it is case-sensitive. Also, be sure to keep the Registration Code private because anyone who knows it can join the intranet.
Let me know what you think and if you have any problems registering (we have had a bit of trouble occasionally with computers or aol connections that can't read java). If you can't register, and would like to, send me email and we will add you to our email mailing list anyhow. That way you can keep up with the latest events.
Other news and information:
We hope for many methods and articles to be written utilizing the standards
concept. The creation of improvisational goals for each level of string
student should help non-jazz string educators teach beginning jazz
techniques. We also need to create guidelines for non-string jazz educators
that specifically address string issues such as bowing articulation, finger
patterns and such concepts. Those and other problems unique to the
instruments could be addressed in supplements to existing improvisation
material.
Here is the new National Standards for the Arts in Music K-12 text. Check out #3; Creating Music.
So far, the Jazz String Caucus is creating an annotated listing of jazz string and related methods, and is in the process of finding or generating jazz compositions with strings. We have created a "string track" for the IAJE 2001 conference with clinics, panels and concerts on a variety of topics. Our members taught improvisational concepts at this year's ASTA and SAA conferences and across the USA and in Europe this summer.
Latest breaking news for us is that I spoke with IAJE Executive Director Bill McFarlin on August 28th about our proposed initiatives. Here are his comments.
Please let me know if there are areas you would like to help us with. We need help writing articles, music for publication, networking, planning future events and practically anything you can think of!
Also, please feel free to ask any questions that you may have about our group,
Renata Bratt
for the Jazz String Caucus
renata@scruznet.com
to the Jazz string caucus page