Two Americans' Jazz Journey Brings Interactive Learning To Musicians In Latvia

Created by Jazz Singer Janet Lawson and Jazz Pianist Lenore Raphael, Jazz Journey Will Be Adopted by Latvian Music Educators

NEW YORK -- This summer, a jazz education program created by two American jazz musicians will be adopted by music teachers throughout the Eastern European country of Latvia. The worlds of classical and traditional music will come together at the V International Music Camp in Ogre, Latvia this July and blend with the rhythms and harmonies of Jazz Journey, an interactive program that traces the journey of West Africans taken from their homeland, as it teaches the history and musical components of jazz.

A few years ago, Jazz Journey was created by Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Janet Lawson and award-winning jazz pianist Lenore Raphael, who is scheduled to appear this summer on NPR's Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz. Drawing from their vast experience teaching students the rudiments of jazz, the two artists designed this hands-on, participatory, and non-judgmental creative experience. With their first Jazz Journey workshop, guest artist Clark Terry brought his own historical perspective and humor, which set the tone for the program's resounding success and vision. Lawson and Raphael realized that providing an open, creative atmosphere, while offering important information, was the most effective channel to an understanding of jazz.

An interactive jazz program applicable to all age groups, Jazz Journey traces the history of jazz as it follows the journey of the people taken from their homeland, beginning in West Africa, moving to the Caribbean, and proceeding to America's Deep South, New Orleans, and up to the big cities of the North. At each stop on the journey, students learn the different styles of music that developed from the people at each location. As the students “journey," they learn polyrhythms from imitating animals and nature in Africa; syncopation and Latin rhythms in the Caribbean; call-and-response and the blues in the American South; dirge, romp, and the introduction of European instruments in New Orleans; and fast, hard-driving bebop and scat in the North. Jazz Journey gives students the spontaneous experience of vocally improvising their own melodies and rhythms to the different styles of music from the “journey" as they absorb its history, sociology, geography, and the ethical values of society.

Janet Lawson presented Jazz Journey at Latvia's Riga College of Pedagogy and Education in 1999. After Lawson's successful residency at the IV International Music Camp for Young Latvian Musicians in 2000, students and teachers from both institutions were aware of her reputation as a superb educator and wanted to experience Jazz Journey for themselves and pass it on to their students.

Dace Aperans, Artistic Director of the V International Music Camp in Ogre, Latvia, has once again invited Lawson to participate as a master teacher and performer at the Camp from July 8 through 19, 2002. The Music Camp offers 100 young musicians, who range in age from 17 to 22, the opportunity to study with world-renowned musicians and educators in the areas of classical vocal and instrumental music, Latvian classics, and now, under Lawson's tutelage, jazz.

The students at the V International Music Camp, representing the Latvian Academy of Music, the Riga College of Pedagogy and Education, and ten music high schools and colleges throughout Latvia, will participate in the interactive program. A final gala concert at the Ogre Cultural Center by students and faculty will include audience participation in Jazz Journey.

And, for the first time, student teachers and professional music teachers from throughout Latvia have been invited to the camp to attend a three-hour seminar, conducted by Janet Lawson, of Jazz Journey. The music teachers will then bring Jazz Journey to their respective music schools and colleges, including the Latvian Academy of Music. Because Latvia is rich in musical tradition, her jazz musicians bring a unique musical background to their jazz playing, combining excellent skill with creative style. Jazz Journey will offer new generations a deeper experience of jazz and its history to contribute to their expression of world music.

Neil Gillis, Vice President, Advertising and A&R, at Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. has generously donated CDs to be distributed to students and faculty at the camp.

Janet Lawson
Born in Baltimore to a family of professional musicians, Janet Lawson made her singing debut at the age of three and later in her teens performed with big bands. After moving to New York, she began her studies with distinguished composer/arranger Hall Overton and made her debut appearance in the Village Vanguard with the Art Farmer Quartet. Throughout her career she has appeared with, among other jazz greats, Duke Ellington, Tommy Flanagan, Joe Newman, Barney Kessel, Milt Hinton, Ron Carter, Barry Harris, Dave Liebman, David and Lida Baker, Rufus Reid, Clark Terry, Ed Thigpen, Cedar Walton and Bob Dorough.

Lawson was soprano soloist with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre in Blood Memories at City Center, New York, and composed and created, with lyricist Diane Snow, the musical Jass is a Lady, supported by NEA and ASCAP Theatre Workshop and produced by Playwrights Horizons in New York City. Lawson has appeared at major New York jazz clubs and has toured the US, Canada and the Far East. She performs mostly in Europe at festivals and clubs, including most recently the Jazz Cafe in London, the Duc des Lombards in Paris, the Copenhagen Jazz House in Denmark with The Very Big Band, plus concerts and clubs throughout Latvia and Lithuania. Her group, the Janet Lawson Quintet, has recorded two albums, The Janet Lawson Quintet, nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance-Female (one of a handful of jazz vocalists to be nominated on her first album, she lost to Ella Fitzgerald), and Dreams Can Be. Cambria Master Recordings recently excerpted the albums for the new CD, The Janet Lawson Quintet, and in 2001, Celeste, a Japanese label, released two CDs drawing from her earlier works plus recordings with David Lahm on Palo Alto's Real Jazz for the Folks Who Feel Jazz.

Lawson is widely recognized for her impeccable musicianship and free spirited, swinging improvisation. Her commitment to improvisation, the essence of jazz, and her later studies with tenor sax master Warne Marsh nourished her conception of the voice as an instrument. This dedication to the musicianship of singers led her to extending her voice into the field of jazz education. A gifted teacher of vocal jazz technique and self expression, Lawson has conducted master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, Berklee College of Music, Indiana University at Bloomington, City Stages in Birmingham, Alabama, and the University of Calgary, and has taught with jazz educators Jamey Aebersold, Patty Coker, and Berklee's Bob Stoloff at IAJE. Lawson headed the Vocal Jazz program at Wm. Paterson in Wayne, New Jersey, from 1981 to 1988. She has conducted clinics throughout the world and is currently Adjunct Professor of Vocal Jazz at the New School University and New York University in New York.

Lawson is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York and Pennsylvania Councils on the Arts, and ArtsLink. She is listed in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, and the All Music Guide to Jazz. Stanley Crouch, noted critic and journalist, says, “ . . . Janet Lawson is a true musician . . . up next to the musicians with whom she's working on an equal level."

Lenore Raphael
Jazz critic Scott Yanow has called pianist Lenore Raphael “one of the most promising pianists currently playing creative music in the modern mainstream of jazz." This past year, Lenore performed at the Westin Hotel during the IAJE Convention in Long Beach, toured Colorado and Florida, playing to “standing room only" audiences, and presented several jazz clinics and workshops at high schools and festivals around the country, featuring her interest in the music of Thelonious Monk.

Raphael has served as co-Director of Project JOY (Jazz Opportunites for Youth) at Montclair State College and Director of Jazz and Youth for the New Jersey Jazz Society. She has presented jazz workshops at Keane College, The New School, and the University of Colorado in Boulder. Raphael has received an ASCAP Award for jazz composition, and her jazz theory book Jazz Master Class was published by Hansen House Music.

Raphael has performed at the Cape May Jazz Festival, the Panasonic Village Jazz Festival, the Keyport Jazz Festival, and on the SS Norway Floating Jazz Festival. She has also appeared at New York jazz clubs, including Birdland, Iridium, the Village Gate, the West End Gate, Condon's, and Metronome, as well as clubs in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Lenore Raphael's live performances on Denver's jazz station KUVO and Orlando's WUCF are featured on both stations' promo CDs. Her most recent CD Reflections has been critically received. Jazz critic John Barett of JazzUsa says,"Lenore has a powerful voice, and it sure is worth hearing." Raphael is currently performing and teaching, doing jazz workshops, and writing music. She will be Marian McPartland's guest on Piano Jazz on National Public Radio in the summer of 2002.