Arts Education in America
In 1943, the United States Armed Forces Institute published a second edition of War Department Education Manual EM 603 Discovering Music: A Course in Music Appreciation by Howard D. McKinney and W.R. Anderson. The material presented in the book was a reprint of educational material taken from existing standard textbook matter used in American schools and colleges at that time and is significant to this discussion because the text included the following when discussing jazz:
Some may start with an enthusiasm for music of the jazz type, but they cannot go far there, for jazz is peculiarly of an inbred, feeble-stock race, incapable of development. In any case, the people for whom it is meant could not understand it if it did develop. Jazz is sterile. It is all right for fun, or as a mild anodyne, like tobacco. But its lack of rhythmical variety (necessitated by its special purpose), its brevity, its repetitiveness and lack of sustained development, together with the fact that commercial reasons prevent its being, as a rule, very well written, all mark it as a side issue, having next to nothing to do with serious music; and consequently it has proved itself entirely useless as a basis for developing the taste of the amateur.
The ambitious listener might better start from the level of Chopin's melodious piano music, or Grieg's northern elegiacs or Tchaikovsky's gorgeous colorfulness.
Fast-forward 56 years to 1999 where I had the distinct pleasure of contributing to 250 Ways To Make America Better, a collection of suggestions for improving America published by JFK, Jr. and the editors of George magazine. Among my eight suggestions to better the country was:
Give utmost attention to at-risk youth, Pay teachers higher wages, and Appoint an American minister of culture (Don't worry - I am NOT rallying for the job. I have a job. I have several jobs!).
I cite the text from these two publications because I believe they provide the perfect bookends from which an honest and earnest discussion about the importance of the arts in America can begin. As a musician, and at my core a jazz musician, my natural inclination is to gravitate to my area of specialty where this subject is concerned. But make no mistake, every artistic vocation whether it is music, dance, painting, literature, the moving image or architecture is vitally important to the fabric of our country's history and deserves to be protected, promoted and nurtured. As my friend Frank Gehry says, if architecture is frozen music, then music is liquid architecture.
For far too long, dating back to the emergence of Jazz and the Blues, our country has treated its only indigenous music as something unworthy of value because it was born on plantations and reared in jook joints. But the power that it possessed was mighty. From the time that I first traveled abroad as a 19 year-old trumpeter with Lionel Hampton in 1951 to being the music director for Dizzy Gillespie's State Department Tour in 1956 -- the first United States sponsored goodwill tour -- to the unifying power of "We Are The World" in 1985, I witnessed firsthand the transformational effects of our Gospel, Blues and Jazz, and its ability to transcend geographic and cultural boundaries.
And without fail, it was and remains America's artistic contributions, especially its music, that is universally embraced by other cultures, pushing aside their own indigenous music and adopting ours as their Esperanto. But today, we sit as one of two Western nations in the world without a Minister of Culture. When Jaime Austria and Peter Weitzner, two New York musicians, took the initiative after hearing a radio interview that I did several months ago to create an on-line petition calling for the appointment of a Secretary of the Arts -- an idea which I had originally suggested more than 10 years ago -- my belief in the power of the arts to bring people together for a common cause was reaffirmed yet again as the petition gained steam across America with an enormous outpouring of support.
It is so disheartening to me that today our children have no idea of their country's cultural heritage. For example, last fall while I was in Seattle during the opening ceremony of the performance arts center at my alma mater Garfield High School, a group of students gathered around me and one young man said that he was a musician and wanted advice on how to further his career. I told him "that first he had to really learn and master his craft." Then I asked him, "Do you know who Louis Armstrong was?" He said, "I think I've heard of him." I asked, "Do you know who Duke Ellington was?" He said, "No." Again I asked, "Do you know who Dizzy Gillespie was?" Again he responded "No." "Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk?" I asked, and again he said "No." It tore my heart apart that on this day that my alma mater was naming a building after me, that this young man had no idea who the men were that put me on their shoulders and helped shaped who I was as a young musician. Men who will forever stand at the foundation of popular music, and who I believe in years to come will be regarded as America's Chopins, Griegs and Tchaikovskys.
We currently have prestigious institutions tasked with overseeing the promotion and caretaking of our cultural legacy but regrettably, they have been unable to open up the vast treasures of our culture to all segments of our society.
In the face of our record business collapsing around the world, I consider it a tragedy on the part of our educational institutions that our children are virtually devoid of their home-grown culture while that same culture is accepted and celebrated all over the world. With the belief that we must first clean our own house in regard to preserving our cultural legacy, I recently hosted a gathering of some of our nation's leaders in music education, the music industry, corporations, foundations and philanthropists to share resources, networks and ideas to make music education an ongoing part of the lives of children in the United States.
The objective of this initial consortium will be to identify a 12-month plan of very specific action steps that will serve as the foundation achieving the goals of
1. Creating a program that ensures our children are thoroughly grounded in the history of American music and its importance to the cultural identity of our nation.
2. Increase the percentage of children that are participating in at-school and after-school programs.
3. Increase the quality and number of the most qualified music educators in the United States.
4. Through partnership with the participants, develop shared advocacy and funding initiatives for youth music programs.
Our culture is as much a part of and just as important to our American history as Washington's crossing of the Delaware, the invasion of Normandy and the landing of a man on the moon and is just as important to our children's educational development.
It has been proven time and time again in countless studies that students who actively participate in arts education are twice as likely to read for pleasure, have strengthened problem-solving and critical thinking skills, are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, four times more likely to participate in a math and science fair, three times more likely to win an award for school attendance, and four times more likely to win an award for writing an essay of poem. Can you imagine what that does for the self esteem of a child? The confidence it instills in them to overcome any obstacle that they are presented with?
Every great society from the Egyptians, to the Greek and Roman Empires, has been defined by its cultural contributions. The commercial benefits of the arts not withstanding -- our artistic endeavors are a consistent source of revenue in the United States and our nation's largest export -- can we really run the risk of becoming a culturally bankrupt nation because we have not inserted a curriculum into our educational institutions that will teach and nurture creativity in our children? That when future generations look back our cultural legacy is an age of disposable, vapid pabulum.
I am of the mindset that you have to know where you come from to get to where you're going. The time has come to make a concerted effort from both the public and private sectors to put in place a system whereby our children and future generations will be aware of our county's rich cultural legacy and contributions to the world. The arts, particularly our music, are the soul of our country. They are an expression of our spiritual ideals and a timeline of the emotional state of our nation... scars and all. It is a disservice to every American not to recognize them in their proper light.
Regarding jazz, the War Department Education Manual EM 603 Discovering Music: A Course in Music Appreciation would go on to conclude that:
Jazz is too fixed in its limitations and too narrow in the variety and quality of its content to be able to maintain itself long in a world of flux and change. Influential as it has been as a factor in the cultivation of present-day taste, it can hardly be looked upon as a real basis for the development of an American musical idiom.
As a jazz man, I'm thrilled that they were wrong. Our country has a long history of discarding and devaluing our cultural resources particularly where music is concerned. And although we have thankfully evolved in this pursuit, we still have much further to go before we can claim that we are diligent protectors of our cultural heritage.
In the global landscape that we live in today where ideas are exchanged with the stroke of a send key, what better way to influence nations than by exposing them to the basic belief in freedom of expression that is inherent in our nation and witnessed through our culture.
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As a former general music teacher, I am convinced that the arts are critical to our survival as a species, for they express our inner response to our experience in phenomena, while the exploitation of science is only interested in the utility "how".
As far back as prehistory, Man has always occupied itself with the wonders of Nature through sound, graphics, and culinary expressions. Unfortunately, the arts, and even professional sports, have become more of a luxury afforded by a fortunate "few". This is an expressed perversion of a society, where untempered competition, and "economic obesity", has become our implicit aspiration over the collective sharing for the common good, and the cultivation of human potential. Thus, we are left only with the limited shelf life of commercialized art (generally own by unsympathetic investors) which has no value except as a commodity, while systematically truncating the careers of its creators. Art is more than its value as a commodity, just as Man is more than his abilty to survive. The very "platform" that allows us to indulge in our collective
Quincy, I hope you have much influence on the school administrations and much success! I teach jazz at an arts based high school and it is helping many young people find something positive that they can do and helps with all other parts of their life. I wouldn't teach anywhere else and I can't understand why most if not all schools aren't taught this way. We have an excellent rating even being an urban high school. I have relatives that teach at standard schools and they tell me that their administrations think that what I do is frivolous. I'm deadly serious about what I do and can see much good being done at our school with at risk students and well to do students alike. Frivolous indeed!
Thank you Quincy.
Every kind of music is marginalized. Rap is too crass, classical is too snooty, country is too juvenile, pop is too commercial and soft, the Blues just recycles the same stuff.
It's all too chauvinistic or effeminate, boring for young or old people, unoriginal or disrespecting the classics, etc.
Thank you, Quincy, for all that you do to help expose young people to music. My daughter is a student at NOCCA. Two of her friends played at your fundraiser in New York last week. They said it was amazing and they were grateful for the opportunity.
Because my daughter was able to study at a free, public, performing arts school, she received an excellent scholarship to a well respected university.
The arts are extremely important and both of my kids are living proof of how an arts education helps keep a child focused, enthusiastic and interested in learning.
Preach it, Q. And thanks for enriching our culture with your music and advocacy (and with Rashida, but that's another topic).
Unfortunately, I don't think that we can depend on the government to protect and encourage our national musical treasures. We could also question whether that SHOULD be the purpose of government.
Unfortunately, a lot of right-wingers think all you need is God and mind-numbingly boring Country Music!
No, you can leave out the country music.
Music and the Arts stimulate the right (creative) side of the brain, which is the side of the brain which controls emotions. Without the proper stimulus, you end up with an unbalanced individual who is intellectually mature but emotionally retarded.
You can teach technique, not creativity.
Not true.
1. You can most definitely stimulate creativity by guiding students in the right direction and giving them assignments where they have to "fill in the blanks" with their own ideas.
2. The vast majority of creative musicians started of by learning from others, incorporating their own ideas and finally creating something original by themselves.
You can teach a person to honor the place their personal creativity comes from, and to value and pursue what they find there. Does that make it clearer?
Without the instrument with which to learn the technique, you can't tap the creativity within.
A child who doesn't have a musical instrument to play with is a child that can't learn to play music.
A child who lacks paint, paper, pencils and colors is a child who can't be a visual artist.
A child who doesn't have ballet shoes or tap shoes is a child that will never be a ballerina or a tap dancer.
First, let me say it is an honor to read anything that the great Mr. Quincy Jones has written, not only are you one of our treasures, but I agree with most of what you said. Mr. Jones I don't know what's going to come of your trying to get the children of america back to the roots of knowing the great men of jazz and intrested in arts. First, you have got to get to these administrations of our schools to listen because for some reason they have assumed that these things aren't important. Next the parents have got to get involved more in the curriculam of their child, we need parent involvement and the parents need to feel their opinions matter. Not only do they not know those famous musicians but some don't know who George Washington Carver was and all the things this great man did. We have so many issues but I wish you well Mr. Jones. A man is great not for all the things he can do but for the one he persued and conquered.
Jazz is America's classical music. Secretary of the Arts may be a good idea (heck, anything that supports comprehensive arts education is vital), but a step in the right direction would be for ppl to admit jazz has more complexity and cultural and human relevance than...wel
I remember hearing McCoy Tyner on the radio in the 60s, as a young teen. I thought it was the then-present day 'classical
There is an enormous difference between education and training. By and large we have abandoned education and now our schools are dedicated to train the workers of tomorrow. What remains of the vestiges of American culture will vanish as we meld seamlessly into a nation of robots to serve the industrial machine.
It is true that our educational system has become more of a "results-focused" "bottom line" oriented proposition. However, we are also deferring more and more of the job of ensuring that our culture and our history is passed on by our educators and our school system. I think that is THE mistake. Parents who remain engaged and offer opportunities to their children to see beyond the narrowness of their day-to-day existence are doing what needs to be done that we do not end up with a nation of "drones."
Apologies to the arts crowd ... but no single human endeavor matches the mind expanding creativity of scientific discovery.
That's where we should focus our youth ...
Ironically, you use a European painting for your moniker, Not a scientific equation.
bravo
One compliments the other.
The creative element is critical in scientific discovery - otherwise it is simply rote learning.
Music helps develop a facility in mathmatics.
Studying the arts will make better scientists.
My daughter has attended a science and technology magnet school in the morning and a performing arts high school in the afternoon for her entire 4 years of high school. The 2 schools have been EQUALLY valuable in shaping her and preparing her for the real world and an advanced education.
Disagree billybob. Artists have often anticipated the breakthroughs in science. See the book Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain.
this piece puts me in mind of a thought i had while watching HBO's "The Wire," to wit, what would
the Ball-more high schools from hell look like if there were regular art, dance and music classes?
it makes me cringe to think everyone needs to be trained as a math/scien
the good luck while growing up in New York to be a regular (under-age) customer at Birdland and saw all the great jazz players Jones mentions (Davis, Gillespie, etc.) up close and personal, and what a gift to my life they were -- we need art/culture to stay sane and creative and playful in this woeful world!
It's easier to enslave an ignorant nation.
Creating a depression forcing schools to cut programs & staff because of insufficient funds is what some observers call: "The dumbing down of America".
Our kids are obese, hooked on alcohol, tobacco, and whatever is in the medicine cabinet or can be inhaled in a paper bag. Meth use is epidemic.
The high school dropout rate is astronomical. Unwed teenage pregnancies also on the increase.
For those kids that stay in school the arts represent a blessing that can keep on giving.
Conditions is schools are so bad that a website advocated by SIDNEY PORTIER called donorschoo
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