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Jazz
Studies Area
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- Introduction
- Program History
Introduction
The first program of its kind in the US, Improvised Music Studies
was established as a concentration in the music major at San
José State University in 1991, and awarded a commendation
for innovation by the Office of the Chancellor of the California
State University. This unique concentration offers the student
an opportunity to explore and experience improvisational forms
from all over the world: from bebop to the Euro-American avant-garde,
from the classical traditions of India to the music and dance
of Africa and the African Diaspora. With jazz studies at the
foundation of the curriculum, students build on this base through
the study of improvisation in a wide variety of non-Western
and Western traditions.
Faculty specializations
The distinguished IMS faculty includes performer/scholars with
specialties in jazz performance (voice and all major instruments),
musics of Africa (West African drumming, dancing, and song),
the African Diaspora (African-American blues, Cuban folkloric
musics, Afro-Cuban jazz, Afro-Brazilian folkloric and popular
styles), and India (vocal and instrumental genres), among others.
Performance Classes and Ensembles [to replace "Performing
Ensembles" heading] Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble (dance music
from Cuba, Brazil, and elsewhere in the African diaspora); Big
World Jazz Band (mainstream repertoire for instrumentalists
and singers); Small Jazz Ensembles (mainstream repertoire for
rhythm section plus horn and/or voice); Combined Arts Improvisation
(fusions--e.g., Gospel-jazz, Afropop-bebop, Indian classical
music-dance); gamelans Sekar Kembar and Si Betty; Improvisational
Traditions of the World (Africa and Diaspora; Asia; and non-Western
Modal Traditions); graduate subjects (e.g., improvisation and
the avant-garde; jazz and klezmer).
For information regarding the Jazz Area and related studies
please contact the School
of Music and Dance at San Jose State University.
- Program History
- San José State University's Improvised Music Studies
(IMS) program, was established in 1991 by Dr. Theodore Lucas,
Chair of the School of Music and Dance. IMS grew out of
SJSU's jazz studies concentration. Both the jazz and Improvised
Music Studies programs were founded on the vision of Professor
Dwight Cannon, an innovator who, a dozen years earlier,
had pioneered to create at SJSU the first jazz major in
the California State University system. Cannon perceived
a narrowing of improvisational models in contemporary jazz
studies programs, and saw that his students would benefit
by a program which looked beyond the scope of a single improvisatory
idiom.
From the 1960s until his retirement in the 1990s, Cannon
worked at SJSU to reinvent educational models for music
performance that would challenge conventional notions he
viewed as increasingly obsolete. His efforts were concentrated
on devising and implementing new curricula for the study
of jazz and improvisation. Cannon saw a vital array of improvisatory
expressions thriving outside of academic walls, and felt
that their inclusion would enrich an academic jazz program.
Page
updated 02/11/2005.
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