New England Conservatory has the party hat on for what Mayor Thomas M. Menino has dubbed Hot and Cool: 40 Years of Jazz at NEC Week.
The shindig marks the anniversary of the first fully accredited jazz studies program at a music conservatory. Credit musician, historian, author and former NEC president Gunther Schuller for putting the program in place back in 1969 when conservatories were primarily bastions of classical training.
Schuller assembled a heavyweight faculty of performer/educators that included Jimmy Giuffre, Jaki Byard, Ran Blake, George Russell and Steve Lacy. And he drew a student body that eventually counted among its ranks such future jazz stars as Danilo Perez, John Medeski, Regina Carter and Luciana Souza.
The shindig marks the anniversary of the first fully accredited jazz studies program at a music conservatory. Credit musician, historian, author and former NEC president Gunther Schuller for putting the program in place back in 1969 when conservatories were primarily bastions of classical training.
Schuller assembled a heavyweight faculty of performer/educators that included Jimmy Giuffre, Jaki Byard, Ran Blake, George Russell and Steve Lacy. And he drew a student body that eventually counted among its ranks such future jazz stars as Danilo Perez, John Medeski, Regina Carter and Luciana Souza.
