His cheeks puff as he plays the cascading notes. Aebersold's bifocal-aided eyes dart around and glare into the faces of his nine students. Does anyone recognize the tunes?
"Shew!" the veteran music instructor shrugs—a little winded and a tad flustered—and puts his sax on the table.
"What am I doing?" he implores. "Is it the tempo? What is it? You guys are usually better than this."
Aebersold blows more notes, and a student shouts: "Lazybird!"
"Yes! Now, let's get our horns out."
On cue, Aebersold's advanced jazz improvisation class perks up.
"Let's do 'Old Folks.' Anyone got an intro for this?"
Aebersold counts out a rhythm and they start. He grimaces after a few bars.
"Stop! Do it again! Let's get together!"
Jamey Aebersold, an adjunct professor of music at U of L and a 40-year veteran of jazz instruction, doesn't teach a typical music class. Like Delfeayo Marsalis many of the students in his advanced improvisation class have worked professionally and are coming back to enhance their skills.
They resume. The ensemble of piano, drums, horns, saxes and guitar states the theme then breaks out into solos. Aebersold struts and points and calls out: "Somebody else! Bridge, bridge! Bridge then out! You can improvise! Upper minor third! Back down!"
The students fill the classroom with rich sounds that an ardent jazz fan would pay top dollar to hear.
Ideally, the lights should be low and martinis served.
Aebersold, an adjunct professor of music at U of L, is a four-decades veteran of jazz instruction. His students come from all over the world. They have known who he is since their childhoods. By all accounts, Aebersold's famous sets of "Play-A-Long" books, LPs and CDs have helped thousands worldwide learn jazz improvisation and improve their skills.
And Aebersold's is no typical music class.
On trumpet is Jim Lewis, a top Canadian jazz artist and educator who has recorded for Sony. To his right on trombone is Delfeayo (pronounced Dell-fee-oh) Marsalis, a Grammy Award-winning record producer, brother of two of the world's most famous jazzmen, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and son of a legend.
Standing next to him is Gray Mayfield, a well-known alto sax player whose gigs included a stint with Buckwheat Zydeco.
The average age of the class is 31. Most have worked professionally in jazz and are coming back to get master's degrees or enhance their skills.
"Delfeayo plays with Elvin Jones [a famous jazz drummer who recorded with John Coltrane], but even he has shortcomings like everyone else," Aebersold says. "Jim too. He wants to be able to hear and recognize and identify what's going on during a performance as quickly as possible.
"I'm trying to help them improve their improvisational skills."
Aebersold's jazz improv class is just part of the story of the up-and-coming Jamey Aebersold Jazz Studies Program at U of L. In 2000, the program established a master of music in music performance with a concentration in jazz degree. Its first recipient, Renato Vasconcellos, is a renowned Brazilian jazz composer and pianist who already had been awarded a medal by Brazil's government for one of his compositions.
"Renato, Delfeayo and Jim are putting their careers on hold just to come here and learn," says Mike Tracy, '74M, '89E director of the jazz studies program. "These are devoted guys with a mission. They're all highly skilled, but they want more.
"And I'm honored they've come here to learn, because they could have gone anywhere else in the world."
Starting in a Minor Key
Tracy says jazz music education has changed a lot since his college days in the early '70s. Like many schools, U of L had no jazz program and didn't want one. He added that the saxophone, especially jazz saxophone, got no respect.
"At most schools back then, the clarinet teacher taught saxophone," he says.
Mike Tracy, jazz studies program director, says jazz education and changed over the past 25 years.
After a brief stint at the University of Kentucky learning sax under a clarinet teacher, Tracy came to U of L in 1970 when the School of Music agreed to hire a real sax instructor to teach him. That instructor was Jamey Aebersold.
"I wanted to study jazz," Tracy says, "but when I came to U of L everything was classical. There was a different mindset back then. We've too often looked elsewhere—to Europe—and too long ignored non-Western music based on social and racial lines and other factors.
"We now realize the world is more diverse and recognize the value of American music and our culture."
Tracy admits to being "cocky" back then.
"I was always first chair in the band and thought I knew it all," he says. "Then I go to Jamey and he starts playing all these scales that I had no idea existed and I realized I didn't know anything!"
Tracy supplemented his U of L coursework by going to Aebersold's New Albany house once a week for lessons and attending an Indiana University-Southeast jazz class.
"Jamey was demanding, but he knew how to teach by example—showing by doing, just like his Play-A-Long materials."
Aebersold, who received a master's degree in saxophone in 1962 from Indiana University, was a respected instructor in the area. In 1967 he sold the first of his Play-A-Long music improvising kits that would soon grow into a music publishing empire.
Gail Wynters, one of today's great jazz vocalists, sings a duet with U of L student Ben Sollee during Jazz Week in February.
Tracy was U of L's first saxophone major, earning undergraduate degrees in 1974 in both classical saxophone performance and music education.
During the next decade, he played gigs, taught at high schools and had teaching stints at Bellarmine College (now University) and U of L. Through it all, Tracy says jazz studies played second fiddle to classical instructionfailed in terms of resources, personnel and facilities that classical instruction received.
Then in 1985 U of L trumpet professor Leon Rapier asked Tracy to return to U of L to teach saxophone and direct bands. The school was now ready to test the waters in jazz education.
Student vocalist Amy Parker.
In the next few years came major faculty hires: Steve Crews '75M (piano, 1990–2000); John La Barbera (trumpet, arranging and composition) and Jerry Tolson (vocal, jazz history and styles). Today, jazz studies has nine faculty members including three full time and six part time. Visiting artists supplement the teaching staff.
"I've tried to put in place here at U of L all the things I wish that I'd had when I was in school, things that would have made my education better," Tracy says. "Running the program is like jazz soloing," he continues. "You try something and if it doesn't work, you throw it out and start again."
It's an ensemble effort too, he adds. "Everybody joins and develops the theme and variations and brings our own unique sound to it. We learn from other schools and see what they do, just like we listen to other musicians.
"There's a real creative energy here. It's something you can't bottle."
That energy is what impressed La Barbera when he decided to come to U of L in 1992.
"I liked what I saw—a young faculty, very energetic and willing to do things." La Barbera is a veteran trumpet player, arranger and composer who has played in the Buddy Rich Band and Glenn Miller Orchestra. His works are heard in film, on television and on Broadway and have been performed by Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Sammy Davis Jr., Mel Torme and many others.
"It's a real coup to get people of the caliber of John," Tracy says. "We have a great team now, but we don't want to find ourselves like the basketball team that loses all of its seniors one day.
"Our next goal is to educate the next generation of educators to carry on this tradition. And that's a great responsibility."
Bebopping into the Future
Energizing young people about jazz sparked Aebersold to begin his Summer Jazz Workshops in 1975. The workshops, now hosted by the jazz program, have attracted thousands of students, educators and artists from around the world for an intensive two weeks of seminars and concerts.
"What's great is that it gets so many people to come here—to Louisville—to play jazz," Tracy says.
So does the school's Jazz Week, which each February brings major artists to campus and the city to perform. Past luminaries have included Delfeayo's brother Wynton, Terence Blanchard, Michael Brecker, Ray Brown, Phil Woods, Billy Taylor and more.
"The first piece I ever learned to play was Take Five by Dave Brubeck," Tracy says. "Now Brubeck's quartet is the headliner for Jazz Week 2003. Talk about coming full circle!"
Recent initiatives by jazz studies include "Jazz in the Schools," a program to take improvisational teaching to 10 middle schools in the Louisville area. Exchange programs with the Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland and possibly one with the University of Brasilia are also on the play list.
Herman Burney filled in on bass during a Jazz Week performance.
Now that old barriers and elitism in music education have fallen, the cross-pollination between jazz and classical educators bodes well for the future of jazz education, Tracy adds.
That combination helped Delfeayo Marsalis decide to come to U of L to continue his education.
"I know Pat La Barbera (John's brother), and he told me about the program here," Marsalis says. "The jazz program lured me, but it was the classical program that helped me make the final decision."
In addition to sharpening his improv skills with Aebersold, Marsalis is working intensively with classical trombone instructor Brett Shuster to enhance his classical playing skills. Shuster, a recent hire, has won a Grammy and recorded classical pieces for Polygram and other labels.
"Brett and I are on the same wavelength musically," Marsalis says. "I'm preparing a recording of classical literature—sonatas by [Paul] Hindemith and Gordon Jacob. This is a good time for me to tackle this, and I think my education here will improve my technique across the board.
"Most people perform first and then produce. My career has been backwards," he adds.
Marsalis, 37, has produced nearly 100 albums since he was 17 for artists such as Harry Connick Jr. and Marcus Roberts. Four of his productions won Grammys. He made his own first album in 1992.
Considering that Marsalis comes from the "first family of jazz," his faith in U of L's music programs is a prestigious testimonial.
"I want to sound authentic and believable when I play Hindemith, not like a jazz guy trying to sound classical," Marsalis says.
"When you work with people like Wynton and Branford, they're not going to allow me to get away with anything. If I don't do something right, they're going to tell me about it."
