Fancy a degree in jazz? Newpark Music Centre is training a whole new generation of artists, writes Ray Comiskey
The first thing that strikes you when you visit the grey building that houses Blackrock's Newpark Music Centre, is that it could do with a lick of paint. This is the home of the centre's Jazz and Contemporary Music Department, and it's hard at first to reconcile its unprepossessing, slightly down-at-heel appearance with the international reputation the JCMD has won in its field.
But appearances are deceptive, because from this rather drab building a new generation of Irish jazz musicians has begun to emerge, well equipped to take on the demands of playing the music. For the first time they can leave with a nationally and internationally recognised third-level jazz degree, a BA in Jazz Performance (BAJP). It's a non-classical undergraduate music performance degree, Level Eight Honours, which is validated by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC).
This is a world removed from the way it used to be in Irish jazz circles. Until Newpark set up the JCMD 1986, and launched its Professional Musician Training Course (PMTC) in 1997 as the centre's first full-time course, generations of aspiring Irish jazz musicians had to get, wherever they could find it, a combination of basic classical training, instrumental instruction and on-the-job education from other musicians.
Some expanded on this with further studies, but it was largely a self-help process. It required real dedication and love, as well as talent. And it's sometimes forgotten that the leading lights of the senior generation of Irish jazz musicians all had to find their way through this kind of environment or seek opportunities abroad - not that many existed there anyway. That's what makes the achievements of those such as Louis Stewart, Noel Kelehan, Jim Doherty, Johnny Tate, Bobby Lamb, the honorary Irishman, John Wadham and the somewhat younger generation of the Guilfoyle brothers, Ronan and Conor, and Mike Nielsen, for example, all the more remarkable.
Ronan Guilfoyle, director of the jazz department at Newpark and now an internationally acknowledged jazz bassist, composer and teacher, began, as did many jazz musicians of his generation and before, as a fan who was largely self taught. And he is indebted to older jazz musicians here for encouragement and practical help. But, like his brother, who was also self-taught initially and Nielsen (who did study for a year at Berklee, Boston's jazz and contemporary music college), he made it his business to go further. Jazz, he realised, had long gone past the stage where you just stood up and let it happen.
The result is Newpark's PMTC and, since last year, the BAJP. While there are those who would argue that too much teaching coaches the individuality out of students, it's hard to make a case against it. Knowing your craft won't stop you from being a genius if you have what it takes. And regimentation seems a foreign concept when you talk to some of the students. When they finish their studies and face the dauntingly comprehensive degree exam this summer, they will leave with few illusions about the nature of the career they have chosen.
They come from all kinds of backgrounds. Stephen McFarlane, a guitarist who names Joe Pass as his first influence, began in Irish traditional music and rock. "It was bits and pieces," he says, "and jazz seemed to be the logical progression to improve my musicianship. I wasn't interested in going abroad. I was in a band doing jazz, and playing for weddings, so I joined Newpark in 2002."
HE DID THE diploma course there for the London Guildhall School of Music and "when the opportunity to do a degree came up at Newpark I jumped at it". The four-year course covered everything, including scales, composing, transcription and ear training, especially in the first two years. After that it was more contemporary jazz: "Wayne Shorter, non-conventional harmonies and how to approach them, odd metre rhythms, unusual material, composition, an ethos class".
What has it done for him? "It's done exactly what I wanted it to do, which is to improve my musicianship. I picked up on stuff very quickly and learned a lot about the basics in the past year. I'm now unfazed by odd metres which would have terrified me in first year. And we get to know a lot of stuff by hanging out together."
He wants to continue playing, but, he says, "this course gives me the option to teach jazz guitar." The opportunities exist or will be there soon, he adds, pointing out that "Tralee and Waterford Institutes of Technology are getting jazz departments and Cork has one already".
The morning we met he was part of a quartet going through Ronan Guilfoyle's AKA, a piece based on the harmonies of Coltrane's Moment's Notice, under the eagle eye - or should that be ear? - of the composer. It was, the composer acknowledged, full of challenges, rhythmically, harmonically and in terms of structure; pitfalls for the unwary.
"We've been doing pieces by Steve Coleman, Woody Shaw, Dave Holland and others," says Guilfoyle. "These are all compositions of the past 20 years, and so it's very contemporary - and challenging." Another fourth-year ensemble class, specifically focusing on styles, was under drummer Seán Carpio. This time, the jazz derived from the 1940s and 1950s and the music of the highly original Thelonious Monk. Idiosyncratic in almost every way, Monk's music poses its own rhythmic problems for players. Carpio was taking them through the Monk canon, pointing out the crucial importance of note placement and accent, even in the superficially simple but vastly different music of Monk's contemporary, Count Basie.
Part of the ensemble that morning was Jenna Harris, a classically trained singer who says she was "always interested in jazz - the whole feel is different from classical music." Previous years at Newpark had taken her through instrumental, ensemble, ear training, harmony and arranging, among others.
"This year is brilliant," she says, "because there are so many classes, including composition. There's a vocal class, one-on-one, pedagogy, where we sit in and observe first-year classes, a vocal lab - four- and five-part harmonies, rhythm grooves, the history of Western classical music, a world music class, an ensemble where we do our own material, a stylistic group - it was Monk this morning - a free jazz ensemble, contemporary jazz, a rhythm class and a discussion forum."
The benefits, she says, are the discipline and focus it has given her over the years, and the confidence of playing in front of people. "I can sing jazz standards and other stuff with confidence." When she graduates this summer, she says, she will "continue playing and teaching".
ONE OF THE second-year students is Matt Jacobson, whose older brother, Dan, an alumnus of Newpark, is already beginning to make a mark as a guitarist and composer. Matt studied classical piano initially, then switched to drums at 14.
"The first year PMTC," he says, "is not solely on jazz. There's an improvising ensemble and a performance at the end of the year, where you could be playing anything. And everyone learns piano." In second year, he gets arranging and ear-training sessions, individual one-on-one instrumental instruction and ensemble sessions. Naturally, there's a lot of practice involved and it's particularly relevant that running through all four years is a Rhythm Studies course, devised by Ronan Guilfoyle, for which Newpark has gained international acknowledgement.
Matt is looking forward to the fourth year. "The music is contemporary, which is the kind of jazz I listen to." And then? "I'll probably go abroad to perform and teach. I did an audition for Berklee and went over in 2004 to study for five weeks. It was fine for a visit."
The international flavour of the student roll call is exemplified in Germán Lema. Born in Buenos Aires, he lived for much of his life in Asuncion, in Paraguay, where crime is rampant, life is cheapand even the police can't be trusted. A pianist, he played in blues and rock bands, then jazz, from swing to bebop, all the time devouring whatever music books he could get in such a remote part of the world. Married, with a little daughter, he and the family moved to Paris, where he studied for two years. When Newpark's growing international reputation reached his ears, he and his wife decided to come here. He's been at Newpark, where he has classes five days a week, since last September. "It has given me lots of experience in some styles I didn't know, and hadn't a way to get into," he says. "Now I know what to look for further. I want to continue playing and I have some projects in mind.
"I created the first jazz institute in Paraguay and I think now a musician should be involved in teaching, because that helps the music evolve. Nowadays, it's hard to find a musician who is not academically trained." Given that he's so far away from Paraguay, which hardly seems the safest place in the world to bring up a family, where's next for him? "Life is an improvisation," he answers. "You open a door and you don't know what's there until you open it." At least, when he does, Newpark will have shown him where to look and how to recognise what he finds.
Class Acts: Jazz greats at Newpark
Newpark Music Centre was established in 1979. The centre's director, Nigel Flegg, says it now has more than 1,000 students, with all exam syllabuses covered up to and including diploma level, and specialised courses not available elsewhere in Ireland. Among these are the courses run by the Jazz and Contemporary Music Department, set up in 1986 under Ronan Guilfoyle, which since last year offers a BA in Jazz Performance, validated by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council. The co-ordinators are Phil Ware and Conor Guilfoyle, both professional jazz musicians.
Over the years some of the greatest names in jazz have given masterclasses at the centre. These include saxophonists Dave Liebman, Dave Binney, Mark Turner, Pepper Adams, Steve Coleman and Sonny Fortune; pianists Mulgrew Miller, Jarmo Savolainen, Enrico Pieranunzi, Kenny Werner and Richie Beirach; trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Bobby Shew; bassists Dave Holland, Lonnie Plaxico and Larry Grenadier; drummers Art Blakey, Keith Copeland, Jeff Ballard and Eliot Zigmund; guitarists Rick Peckham and John Abercrombie; and singer Norma Winstone.
