JAZZ IN AMERICA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Critic in 1969 for Boston After Dark
Bob Blumenthal began his career as a jazz critic in 1969 for Boston After Dark, later known as The Boston Phoenix, while in college, and continued to contribute to that paper through 1989. After serving as guest critic for The Boston Globe during its jazz festival for a decade, he became a regular Globe contributor in 1990 and a weekly columnist in 1993, and continued in both roles until 2002. Throughout these years, during which he worked as an attorney, primarily for the Massachusetts Department of Education, Blumenthal was also contributing to such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Down Beat and JazzTimes, and writing numerous album notes. He also provided radio and television commentary and served as a panelist for the National Jazz Service Organization, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Jazz Composers Alliance. He was one of six commissioners for the Recording Industry Association of America who selected the White House Record Library during the Carter Administration.
Among Blumenthal's other projects have been his ongoing affiliation with the RVG reissue series of Blue Note Records and the Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington, Vermont (where he serves as critic in residence), his design of a five-part video jazz history for the Montreal Jazz Festival, contributions to the anthologies Jazz: The First Hundred Years (edited by John Edward Haase) and The Oxford Companion to Jazz (edited by Bill Kirchner), and the introductory essays for Jacques Lowe's Jazz: Photographs of the Masters. He also received Grammy awards for best album notes in 1999 for Coltrane: The Classic Quartet/Complete Impulse! Studio Recordings and 2000 for Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-61. In March 2002, Blumenthal became a permanent consultant to Marsalis Music, the record label founded by saxophonist Branford Marsalis.
David Vigilante is a historian and educator who served for many years as Associate Director of the National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has a Master of Arts degree in Latin American history from the University of Alabama and has pursued post-graduate studies in American history at UCLA. He served as a high school teacher for 30 years, the majority of which was teaching in the regular history and Advanced Placement history programs in the San Diego Unified School District. In 1968 he was selected to serve as co-chair of the American Historical Association's History Education Project for Southern California. The program's goal was to foster collaboration between the university and secondary schools. At the end of his teaching career, he served as Coordinator for the History-Social Studies for San Diego County. Following retirement as a classroom teacher, Vigilante worked as a consultant for the California Department of Education's assessment division.
Vigilante was a member of the Curriculum Task Force that developed the National History Standards and co-edited Bring History Alive! - A Sourcebook for United States History and the companion volume for world history. He has written teaching units, published by the NCHS, in United States history on the Washington and Lincoln administrations, Philadelphia during the American Revolution, the Bill of Rights, Spanish and Pueblo clashes in the Southwest, Texas independence and the Mexican War, Reconstruction, and the Red Scare of the 1920s. He also developed teaching guides on the Cold War for the New York Times' "Live From the Past" series, and wrote online lessons for the Library of Congress's American Memory website as well as suggestions for teacher and student use of the new collections as they were digitized.
Vigilante collaborated with colleagues in writing educational programs to support The Huntington Library's special exhibits, The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America; The Great Experiment: George Washington and the American Republic; and Land of Golden Dreams: California in the Gold Rush Decade. He developed lesson plans for four other Huntington Library exhibits, Created Equal: Inventing the American Republic; Paradise Found, Paradise Lost? - Conflicting Visions of the American West; European Beginnings: The Widening World of Books and Readers; and Seeking Identity and Meaning: British and American Literature. In 1997-1998, he served as content consultant on civics and United States history for a series of 15 video programs produced by Intelecom, Pasadena, California, for the U.S. Department of Education and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Vigilante has received several education awards including the $25,000 National Teacher Award presented by the Milken Family Foundation for Excellence in Teaching and the San Diego Press Club's "Headliner Award." And, over the years, his students have won myriad prestigious awards and competitions as well, including the Constitution and Bill of Rights Annual National Competition and commendations at the White House for outstanding efforts in social studies and American history.
David Nathaniel Baker, Jr. (1931 - 2016) was a world renowned musician, composer, and conductor who served as Distinguished Professor of Music and Chairman of the Jazz Department at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music from 1966 to 2016. A virtuosic performer on multiple instruments and top in his field in several disciplines, Dr. Baker taught and performed throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, New Zealand, and Japan. He also served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra from 1990 - 2012.
Baker was among the first to codify the largely aural tradition of jazz, writing 70 books on jazz improvisation, jazz composition and arranging, jazz pedagogy, how to learn tunes, how to practice, and other related topics. He also has more than 400 articles and 75 recordings to his credit. Best known for his work as a jazz pedagogue, Baker's impressive list of alumni include such distinguished artists and educators as Jamey Aebersold, Jim Beard, Chris Botti, Ralph Bowen, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, John Clayton, Todd Coolman, JB Dyas, Peter Erksine, Jeff Hamilton, John Hasse, Monika Herzig, Bob Hurst, Shannon LeClaire, Alan Pasqua, Shawn Pelton, and Tom Walsh.
Dr. Baker received both bachelor's and master's degrees in music education from Indiana University, and honorary doctorates from Oberlin College, Wabash College, and the New England Conservatory of Music. He studied with a wide range of master teachers, performers, and composers including J.J. Johnson, Bobby Brookmeyer, Janos Starker, George Russell, William Russo, Bernard Heiden, and Gunther Schuller. A 1973 Pulitzer Prize nominee, Dr. Baker also was nominated for a Grammy Award, honored three times by DownBeat magazine (as a trombonist, for lifetime achievement, and induction into the Jazz Education Hall of Fame), and was a recipient of the National Association of Jazz Educators Hall of Fame Award, Indiana University President's Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Arts Midwest Jazz Masters Award, and the Governor's Arts Award of the State of Indiana. He was also a recipient of jazz's hightest honor: the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award.
As a composer, Dr. Baker was commissioned by more than 500 individuals and ensembles, including Josef Gingold, Ruggerio Ricci, Janos Starker, Harvey Phillips, the New York Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Beaux Arts Trio, Fisk Jubilee Singers, Louisville Symphony, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, the Audubon String Quartet, and the International Horn Society. His compositions, tallying over 2,000 in number, range from jazz to classical music to film scores.
Dr. Baker's involvement in music organizations encompassed membership on the National Council on the Arts; board positions for the American Symphony Orchestra League, Arts Midwest, and the Afro-American Bicentennial Hall of Fame/Museum; and chairs of the Jazz Advisory Panel to the Kennedy Center and the Jazz/Folk/Ethnic Panel of the NEA. He also served as President of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) and the National Jazz Service Organization (NJSO); and was a senior consultant for music programs for the Smithsonian Institution.
The David Baker biography, "David Baker - A Legacy in Music" (Monika Herzig, JB Dyas, John Hasse, et al.) was published by Indiana University Press in 2011.
Gary B. Nash is a renowned historian who formerly served as Director of the National Center for History in the Schools where he co-chaired the National History Standards Project. He has published numerous books, articles, and essays focusing on race, class, and power dynamics in American history and is considered to be one of the most eminent social historians in the United States. Many of his texts are used in colleges and universities around the country.
Dr. Nash received both his Bachelor of Arts and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. After a brief stint teaching at his alma mater, Nash began his career at UCLA as an Associate Professor in 1968. Over the years, he held the positions of Professor, Dean of Undergraduate and Intercollege Curricular Development, President of the Organization of American Historians, and Dean of the Council on Educational Development, all at UCLA. He received numerous research grants from the University of California Institute of Humanities and American Philosophical Society and is the recipient of myriad awards and citations including the University of California Distinguished Emeriti Award.
Among Nash's nearly 20 texts are such titles as Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America; Race and Revolution: The Inaugural Merril Jensen Lectures; History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past;and Forbidden Love: The Secret History of Mixed Race America. He also has written essays, articles, and chapters that have been published in major periodicals and texts.
Gary Nash has lectured at numerous universities and served on editorial boards, faculty advisory committees, and nominating committees. He was a Founding Member and served on the Board of Trustees of the National Council for History Education. Nash also has served as Guest Historian for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, President of the Organization of American Historians, and Primary Consultant for the Schlessinger Production series in United States History.
Dr. JB Dyas has been a leader in jazz education for the past two decades. Currently Vice President for Education and Curriculum Development at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, Dyas oversees the Institute's education and outreach programs including Jazz in America (www.jazzinamerica.org), one of the most significant and wide-reaching jazz education programs in the world. He has presented jazz workshops, teacher-training seminars, and jazz "informances" worldwide with such renowned artists as Ambrose Akinmusire, Don Braden, Bobby Broom, Dave Brubeck, Gerald Clayton, Robin Eubanks, Herbie Hancock, Antonio Hart, Ingrid Jensen, Sean Jones, Delfeayo Marsalis, Christian McBride, Bobby Watson, and Steve Wilson.
Prior to his current position at the Hancock Institute, Dyas served as Executive Director of the Brubeck Institute where he implemented its College Fellowship Program, Brubeck Festival, Summer Jazz Colony, and Jazz Outreach Initiative. Before that he served as Director of Jazz Studies at Miami-Dade College - one of the largest and most multi-cultural colleges in the nation, and New World School of the Arts - Miami's award-winning performing arts high school.
Throughout his career, Dyas has performed across the country, designed and implemented new jazz curricula, directed large and small ensembles, and taught a wide variety of jazz courses to students at virtually every level of musical development - age seven to seventy, beginner to professional, learning-challenged to prodigy. He has conducted jazz and tune-learning clinics, adjudicated high school and collegiate jazz festivals, and presented numerous jazz seminars throughout the United States as well as in Australia, Canada, Columbia, Cuba, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey. He also teaches Jazz Pedagogy at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and serves as an adjudicator for the Annual GRAMMY Music Educator Award.
Additionally, Dyas has written for DownBeat magazine and other national music publications, presented clinics and performed at a number of International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) and Jazz Education Network (JEN) Annual Conferences, co-founded the International Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Competition, served on the Smithsonian Institution's Task Force for Jazz Education in America, and contributed the chapter "Defining Jazz Education" to the biography, "David Baker - A Legacy in Music." Dyas recently introduced his "What is Jazz and Why It's Important to the World" lecture for International Jazz Day, for which he annually presents education events in conjunction with the Hancock Institute and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He also has created a series of teacher-training jazz education videos (all available at jbdyas.com), including a national webinar along with Herbie Hancock and US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on the importance of jazz education in our public schools.
Dr. Dyas received his Master's degree in Jazz Pedagogy from the University of Miami and PhD in Music Education from Indiana University, and is a recipient of the DownBeat Achievement Award for Jazz Education. A professional bassist, Dyas has performed well over a thousand jazz and commercial dates throughout his career and continues to perform in a wide variety of jazz and commercial music settings.
J. Richard Olivas is on the history faculty at West Los Angeles College, one of nine campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District. He teaches a variety of courses in United States history and African-American history. Olivas graduated from Stanford University, and he earned a Ph.D. in Early American history from the University of California, Los Angeles. His doctoral dissertation investigated the 1740s religious revivals in Massachusetts and northern New England known as the Great Awakening. After earning his Ph.D., Olivas held a UC President's post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Riverside. He has taught history courses at UCLA, UC Riverside, Baylor University, and throughout the Los Angeles-area community college system.
Dr. Olivas has presented papers and research findings in many forums: "Interdisciplinary Methods for Measuring Religious Revivalism" (presented at American Academy of Religion, Pacific Northwest Region Annual Meeting, Portland, OR; at International Sociological Association, 14th World Congress, Montréal, Canada; and at Social Science History Association, Chicago, IL); "God Helps Those Who Help Themselves: Puritan Clerical Attitudes Toward Poor Persons in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630-1776" (presented at Early Americanists of Southern California Seminar, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA); "New Perspectives on Religious Revivals" (presented at Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Worcester, MA); "Partial Revival: The Limits of the Great Awakening in Boston, Massachusetts, 1740-1742" (presented at Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Indianapolis, IN; at African Meeting House, Museum of Afro American History, Boston, MA; and at Bay Area Seminar in Early American History and Culture, Berkeley, CA); "Old South Church and the Great Awakening in Boston" (presented at Old South Church, Boston, MA); "Rev. Nathaniel Appleton, the Great Awakening in Cambridge, and the Doctrine of Soul Equality" (presented at First Church in Cambridge, Cambridge, MA). He was also the recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the Center for the Study of New England History, Massachusetts Historical Society.
Dr. Olivas has published several essays, including: "Partial Revival: The Limits of the Great Awakening in Boston, Massachusetts, 1740-1742" (In Inequality in Early America, pp. 67-86. Edited by Carla G. Pestana and Sharon V. Salinger. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999); and "God Helps Those Who Help Themselves: Religious Explanations of Poverty in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630-1776" (In Down and Out in Early America, pp. 262-88. Edited by Billy G. Smith. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004). Presently, he is working on a book about the Great Awakening.
In addition to his research and writing interests, Dr. Olivas works to help community college students transfer to four-year colleges and universities. He was a member of the West Los Angeles College/UCLA Transfer Task Force, and the FIPSE Community College Academic Consortium, created the UCLA Summer Immersion Program (SIP), and conducts "UC Personal Statement & Essay Workshops."
Dr. Willie Hill is the former Director of the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Professor in Music Education. He received his B.S. degree from Grambling State University and earned M.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Dr. Hill was a Professor in Music Education, and the Assistant Dean at the College of Music at the University of Colorado-Boulder for eleven years; and, Director of Education for the Thelonious Monk Institute. Prior to his tenure at the University of Colorado, Hill taught instrumental music and served as instrumental music supervisor for 20 years in the Denver Public Schools (DPS).
His professional activities in the Denver/Metro area included the following: a former member of the Denver Broncos Jazz Ensemble, a regular performer at the Denver Auditorium Theater, Paramount Theater, Boettcher Concert Hall and a variety of nightclubs; guest soloist with the Garden City Community College, Hastings College, the University of Colorado, and the University of Denver Jazz Ensembles; a freelance performer with George Burns, Liza Minneli, Lena Horn, Lou Rawls, Ben Vareen, Lola Falana, Johnny Mathis, Sammy Davis Jr., Dizzy Gillespie, James Mody, Jon Faddis, and many others. As a woodwind specialist, he has been a faculty member of the Clark Terry Great Plains Jazz Camp; Founder and Co-Director of the Rich Matteson-Telluride Jazz Academy, and the Mile High Jazz Camp in Boulder, CO. The Colorado Clarinet Choir was chosen to represent the United States in London, England (1984) at the International Clarinet Symposium and Dr. Hill was a member of that touring organization. His conducting experiences include numerous DPS Citywide Honor performances, All-State Jazz Ensembles, All-County Bands, Musical Director at The Schwayder and Bonfils Theaters.
Dr. Hill has held the office of President for the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE), Colorado Music Educators Association, and MENC: National Association for Music Education. He also was a member of the writing team for MENC's Vision 2020 and the national board of directors for Young Audiences, Inc. In 1998, he was inducted into the Colorado Music Educators Hall of Fame. A national artist/clinician for Yamaha Musical Instrument Company, Hill is the author of The Instrumental History of Jazz (N2K, Inc.) and Approaching the Standards (Warner Bros. Publications); and co-author of Learning to Sight-Read Jazz, Rock, Latin, and Classical Styles (Ardsley House Publications) and Jazz Pedagogy: the Jazz Educator's Handbook and Resource Guide (Warner Bros. Publications). He is listed in the first edition of Who's Who among Black Americans and Who's Who among International Musicians.
Howard Mandel is an award-winning journalist, author, editor, broadcaster, educator, and lecturer, specializing in jazz, blues, new, and unusual music. His articles, reviews, interviews, and columns have appeared in Down Beat, Signal2Noise, Jazziz, the Village Voice, The Wire, and Swing Journal, among many other publications, and he was general editor of The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Billboard Books, 2005). His book Future Jazz (Oxford University Press, 1999) explores music emerging since 1975; he is currently writing a volumn on Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Cecil Taylor as representatives of the avant-garde.
Mandel also produces arts segments for National Public Radio, and teaches at New York University and the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program. He currently serves as President of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit international organization of writers, photographers, broadcasters, and new media professionals.
Marcia Foster Dunscomb is a composer, author, educator and pianist. She has served as a Contributing Author for the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, Consultant to the International Piano Teaching Foundation, Educational Consultant in Jazz for the National Museum of American History, and Jazz Editorial Assistant for Jazz Expressions (Warner Bros. Publications). Works in print include Melody Maker (Melody Maker Press), Evolution of Jazz (McGraw-Hill), and Anatomy of Music (McGraw-Hill). In addition, she was a contributing author and Editorial Assistant for Jazz Pedagogy: the Jazz Educator's Handbook and Resource Guide (J. Richard Dunscomb and Dr. Willie L. Hill, Jr. - Warner Bros. Publications), Teaching Jazz - A Course of Study (MENC/IAJE), and Jazz Studies Guide (MTNA/IAJE).
Frequently called as a clinician and adjudicator, Dunscomb has been one of the foremost pioneers in the field of teaching jazz and improvisation to young children. She has presented for many organizations, including IAJE, the National Piano Foundation, and the Stan Kenton Summer Jazz Camps. Previous positions include Director of Education for South Florida Friends of Jazz (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida), Director of Education for Baldwin Piano and Organ Company (Atlanta, Georgia), and music faculty member for Florida International University (Miami, Florida).
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and President of Microgroove
Philip Coady is co-founder and President of Microgroove, the premier software and website company specializing in software and website design for the music industry. He holds a B.M. in Jazz Composition from the University of Miami and a M.M. in Composition from the University of Illinois where he studied computer music. After college, he served in the United States Air Force as a staff arranger, composing and arranging for a wide variety of music for seven U.S. Air Force performing ensembles. His works were featured in hundreds of public performances and on three CDs. He also toured for two years as a performing musician (guitar) in the Commander's Jazz Ensemble, performing in over 100 public concerts.
Later, Coady worked at Microsoft in the multimedia audio department and soon became the lead programmer, ultimately becoming the lead producer for Microsoft's MS4Music group. At that time, he managed a team of designers and programmers in the creation of eight CD-ROM products in partnership with the major record labels. Leaving Microsoft in 1996, he co-founded Microgroove LLC at the time when the World Wide Web began to reach large audiences. Since that time, Microgroove has brought extensive information and application design experience to the evolving medium.
Phil Coady is an avid jazz record collector and past President of the Board of Earshot Jazz, an arts organization formed in 1984 in service to the growing community of jazz artists and audiences in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.