David Pope’s hands seem one with his saxophone when he plays, blowing through a complex set of warm, mellow grooves, blurring the line between classical and jazz music. He is known as a master of multiphonic sound, able to play multiple notes at the same time.
This mastery landed Pope ’95 a recording contract while still a student in the Jazz and African-American Music Studies program (better known by its acronmym, JAAMS) at UMass Amherst. At age 21, lacking experience as a producer, Pope suddenly had to produce a recording and manage thousands of dollars. The result, Soul of the Elephant, launched his career. “This was a dream come true . . . it was also a terrifying responsibility,” says Pope.
Now living in Virginia, Pope teaches at James Madison University, has toured with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Saxology, composes music, and publishes writing about jazz. He embodies the kind of success that JAAMS fosters. Pope says his experience at UMass Amherst and the people he met are a cornerstone of his success, “more so than I could have imagined,” He says, “I was given the best training, exposed to the best music, surrounded by the best peers, and given room to take chances.”
The program has a rich history of cultivating great young musicians like Pope. In the last 20 years, the program has garnered more than 35 Downbeat Magazine student awards in categories from big band and studio orchestra to vocal jazz soloist and original song. The program is a magnet for distinguished faculty, visiting performers, and guest lecturers; its people are fixtures at national and international jazz educators conferences and collegiate jazz festivals/ The curriculum offers improvisation, jazz history, jazz composition and arranging, jazz theory, and African-American music, in addition to three big bands, vocal jazz ensemble, seven combos, and a studio orchestra. When students arrive on campus, they’re thrown right into the world of jazz and are expected to absorb everything around them.
Kate McGarry ’85 was eager for that immersion. In high school on Cape Cod, McGarry studied piano and sang in the choir. One of 10 children, money for college was scarce. When she arrived on campus and began studying under Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer (since retired), it was a dream come true. “He was an expert in African-American music, and his method of teaching was amazing,” says McGarry. “We would listen to music together and he would say ‘Can you hear what Sarah Vaughn is singing here? Can you feel what she’s doing with her voice?’”
After she graduated, McGarry’s career took off. She played at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1987 and released her first album in 1992. Her latest album, The Target, was just released on Palmetto Records and has reached the top 10 on college and jazz radio charts. The Target also received a four-star review in July’s Downbeat Magazine. McGarry was a guest on NPR’s “All Things Considered” in September.
Her voice is spirited and steady. A versatile musician, she can add a jazz sensibility to Bjork one minute and to Joni Mitchell the next.
“Jazz takes a while for a voice and a person to mature,” she says. “I got a foundation at UMass that I keep drawing from and adapting.”
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Stories like Pope’s and McGarry’s are a familiar refrain among jazz alumni. The program is headed by professor Jeffrey W. Holmes, who is a trumpeter, pianist, composer/arranger, drummer, director of Jazz Ensemble I/Studio Orchestra, and recent Grammy winner, now in his 27th year on campus. The program maintains approximately 40 students, while drawing from both the Department of Music and Dance’s 325 majors and from non-music majors campuswide. Undergraduates concentrate on jazz and African-American studies, while graduate students focus on jazz composition and arranging.
Marked by improvisation and self-expression, jazz music can’t be taught entirely in the classroom. Performing is integral to learning. From the moment they arrive on campus, students are encouraged to join countless ensembles, to perform wherever and whenever they can. The department believes in giving students opportunities to learn from the best, then practice what they’ve learned.
For retired professor Yusef Lateef, teaching is about helping students find their own voices and awakening their creative juices. Lateef is an accomplished reed instrumentalist and one of music’s legendary performers who earned a PhD in Education in 1975 from UMass Amherst and taught in the music department from 1987 to 2003. Lateef draws upon the late Charlie Parker as an example of a musician whose music lessons were embedded in his playing. “Parker was showing that you could be yourself,” says Lateef. “It’s easier to emulate someone, more difficult to be oneself.”
In order for students to express their individuality through their instrument, they have to draw from their own lives, says Lateef. Lateef never taught his students simply to regurgitate music that’s already been done, but instead to listen to their inner voices.
While students discover their personal muse, they also must think about their existence upon graduating. “We aren’t just teaching them to be great musicians,” says Holmes. “We teach them how to go out and make a living.” Students learn the business basics of self-promotion and booking gigs for instance, while faculty serve as role models often combining performance, teaching, and writing in their musical careers.
Avery Sharpe ’76 recalls his days at UMass Amherst. Sharpe has played upright and electric bass with musicians such as McCoy Tyner, Archie Shepp, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, and Pat Metheny. He recalls his days at UMass Amherst when he met the bassist Reggie Workman, who told him: “You’re going to want to quit, but don’t.”
For Sharpe, who sometimes teaches, jazz is about presence, Sharpe instructs, it’s about focusing, about letting the music happen. “You can acquire technique,” says Sharpe, “but it has nothing to do with how you communicate. Learn the technique and jump on the bandstand.”
“UMass gave me the courage to actually be a professional musician,” said Jonathan Mele ’93, ‘95G, a percussionist who stayed on to earn a master’s in jazz composition and arranging. Mele now lives in the New York City area with his wife and three-year-old daughter. He splits his time during the day between taking care of his daughter and recording in his studio, while still performing and rehearsing on evenings and weekends. He was featured on Van Morrison’s Magic Time album, released in 2005. “Since I left UMass, I’ve been playing a variety of music . . . jazz gigs, rock gigs, whatever it takes,” says Mele. “The UMass Jazz and African-American Studies Program helped me prepare for my career.”
Along with the pure jazz education, mastering its particular vocabulary, tunes, and history, says Holmes, “we want students to broaden their education because there is so much more they are going to encounter once they leave.” Alumni go on to produce movie scores, record music for television commercials, even perform on cruise ships. “If there’s a musical consciousness inside of them, it will click,” says Holmes.
Chris Merz ’90 pieced together a unique career. After graduation, Merz, who plays the saxophone, fl ute, clarinet, piano, and drums and has toured four continents with jazz great David Brubeck, wanted to teach. Through the UMass Amherst network he learned about a new position being offered in the jazz program at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa. He and his wife, who has a degree in music therapy, headed abroad in 1990. He felt prepared for the position from a technical point of view but learned on the job about teaching jazz and composition in a foreign land.
Now the director of jazz studies at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Merz coaches a combo, directs UNI Jazz Band One, and teaches improvisational jazz and jazz arranging, as well as applied jazz saxophone. “At UMass, I learned that there is a solution to every writing problem if you are patient and diligent,” says Merz. “I just had to have the courage to hang in there and do the work.”
Merz says Holmes is the glue that keeps the department together and helps it continue to churn out successful musicians. “He has a great ability to un-stick you without imposing his own style,” he says. “He always helped me out of the forest but still allowed me to be myself as a writer.”
