The BMI Jazz Composers Workshop Stresses Growth, Communication

by James Isaacs

There is within the many tributaries that flow into the great stream of 20th and 21st-century American music a glorious, if now less surging, tradition of original composition for large ensembles, or big bands. In the 1920s there were the pioneering efforts of Don Redman, Bill Challis, Ferde Grofe, George Gershwin and, of course, Duke Ellington, the matchless Maestro, who continued to innovate until his passing in 1974. During the big bands’ 1930s and ’40s heydey, Fletcher Henderson, Jimmy Mundy, Benny Carter, Gene Gifford, Sy Oliver, Ralph Burns, Dizzy Gillespie, Walter “Gil” Fuller, and Tadd Dameron were in full swing — and subsequently, in some cases, bop. From the post-bop-to-cool ’50s to the post-Beatles 1960s, the writing of Gil Evans, George Russell, Neal Hefti, Pete Rugolo, Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers, John Lewis, Ernie Wilkins, Manny Albam, Al Cohn, Bob Brookmeyer, Gary McFarland, Gerry Mulligan, Frank Foster, Benny Golson, Sun Ra, Mike Abene, Quincy Jones, and Thad Jones (no relation) helped keep big bands alive and sublimely kicking. And within the past 35 or so years, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sammy Nestico, Bob Florence, Maria Schneider, and Jim McNeely are among those who have extended the idiom of big band composition.

How does a student learn the rigorous and often complicated discipline of original pieces for large jazz ensemble, drawing upon the tradition while finding his or her own voice? There are, of course, music schools, colleges and universities, plus a number of high school programs, in which one can learn the nuts and bolts of, say, voicings for brass and reed sections, use of orchestral colors, and elements of the respective styles of the masters.

Then there’s BMI’s Jazz Composers Workshop.

Based in New York and underwritten by the performing rights organization, the workshop stresses for the more experienced writer individual initiative, an ongoing exchange of ideas between musical directors and students (and among the students themselves), and the exploration of new ideas that are nonetheless firmly grounded in what has come before.

Says Jim McNeely, who, along with fellow veteran composer-arranger-pianist Michael Abene, is the JCW’s musical director and boasts a resume filled with impressive credits: “The main thing we try to do is give jazz composers a chance to grow and provide a social setting for that. Composition is traditionally something you do by yourself. You’re at the piano, you’re isolated, you turn off the phone, you work. It’s easy to get into this head where you say, ‘Nobody understands me,’ then you don’t put anything out there, you don’t have the nerve to get off the sidelines and into the game. We try to create a situation where composers can get together and bounce ideas off each other and collectively learn from each others’ mistakes, as well as from each others’ successes. This forces everyone to kind of put up or shut up; you show up for the classes, put your music up there, and get to talking about it.

“And at the same time,” McNeely continues, “we’re trying to give composers a chance to have some of their music played and, in general, just give them an opportunity to grow outside the traditional areas, which are either academic situations, or more commercial writing, where you don’t really get a chance to stretch very much, if at all. You’ve got a job, you do it, and you get paid for it. In schools, you’re limited by maybe the band being not so strong, or you have to fulfill certain requirements. We try to give the people in the workshop a little more free reign.

Adds co-director Mike Abene: “BMI supplies a basic big band, usually eight brass, five reeds, three rhythm (piano, bass, and drums), and maybe a guitar. It’s a very high-level, excellent reading band because the music is very complex, to tell you the truth.”

Founded in 1988, the Jazz Composers Workshop was the brainchild of the noted author and jazz historian Burt Korall, who enlisted the services of a pair of major figures to be co-music directors: the valve trombonist-pianist-composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer and the late composer-arranger Manny Albam. According to Brookmeyer, “Burt Korall came to me and said that BMI already had two other workshops, the theater workshop and the film workshop in L.A., and asked if I’d like to direct this new Jazz Composers Workshop. I said, ‘yes.’ I think a huge amount of credit goes to Burt Korall. He started it and kept it going.”

During the JCW’s first year, Brookmeyer recalled, “Manny, who was a dear old friend, and I learned how to get what we wanted done, done. My view was that I wanted them to be composers, not arrangers. The ones who had enough skills with big bands would be in the A Group, and the ones who had some writing skills, doing the songwriter thing and who’d worked with small bands went with the B Group until they learned how to handle a big band. By the second year, Manny and I had it down. It became really a partnership. The lessons and classes were in my building (in New York), and then rehearsals were at various places like the Greenwich House and Merkin Hall.” (The JCW’s annual concert still takes place at Merkin Hall every July.)

Brookmeyer, currently Professor of Jazz Composition and Improvisation at New England Conservatory, Boston, and Artist In Residence at Brandon University, near Winnipeg, left his JCW post in 1991 and was succeeded by Jim McNeely, whom he recommended. The A (Advanced) and B (Intermediate) Group formats, with about 15-20 students in each class, continue to the present day, with classes meeting once a week, from early-October to late-June, in the third-floor Media Room at BMI. There is no tuition fee.

“It’s not a class,” says Abene, “in the sense that, ‘You’re gonna write like Basie this week, and next week we’ll teach you about Duke Ellington. The students are invited to bring in their own music. It’s critiqued as much as we can in the course of two hours, giving them different suggestions and just trying to push beyond boundaries they might have been locked into.

“The students, all of whom are professional musicians, range in age from their 20s to their 60s. There are people who’ve been writing for years, there are schoolteachers, people who just want to have the freedom to go on past the point where they’ve been working for years. My feeling is, no boundaries and no barriers. Do whatever you want to do and let’s see how it looks and how it sounds.”

Both McNeely and Abene point out that both the A and B Groups are at a high level. “So when somebody goes into the B class,” Abene says, “it’s not in any way terrible. There have been cases where people have started off in the B class and have moved up to the A. Every month we have readings; maybe one month would be for the A class, and the next for the B.”

McNeely picks up the thread: “Typically, what we do in a class situation is we will have anywhere from eight to twelve people who have music to be looked at. Mike and I go through the music, whatever form it’s in. It might be a score, it might be just a lead sheet for a tune (i.e. the basic melody), or it might be a little sketch of something they’re working on. We play it through on the piano and point out certain things we think are strong and certain other things that could be improved. Then the other class members put in their two cents worth. Sometimes the individual composers will have specific questions about things they’ve written: ‘How do I make this part better?’ ‘What do you think I ought to do here?’ That’s essentially a class session.”

But it is not, Abene emphasizes, “a class in the sense of a blackboard, doing illustrations, or anything like that. The object, also, is to come into the class with a knowledge of big band writing. Part of the audition process is that your audition tape should show us that you have some background in scoring, some experience as a writer and an orchestrator.”

Some of the JCW alumni are names well known to most modern jazz listeners. These include the reedman-composers Ted Nash, Jr and Tim Ries, and the pianist-composers Kenny Werner and Franck Amsallem. To that list add the bassist-composer Rufus Reid, who has performed with many of the most significant names in jazz during the past three decades and has recorded several albums as a leader. Reid raves about his experience with the JCW: “Participating in BMI’s Jazz Workshop these last four years has been a complete joy. The knowledge and skills I have gained from the workshop’s coaches, guest composers (such as Maria Schneider and Gil Goldstein), and the other creative participants is bountiful. It truly has empowered me to continue composing and develop at a much higher level than I ever could have imagined. How I listen to music has, as a result, become more intensified. I would recommend this experience to anyone who wishes to know more about themselves in this creative environment.”

Reid is a past winner of the Manny Albam Commission, which results from the competition for the BMI/Charlie Parker Composition Prize. As McNeely explains: “Every year as part of the summer concert we have a competition involving the group members, and the winner receives a commission to compose a piece to be performed at the following summer’s concert.”

Another JCW alum, Anita Brown, may not be as familiar to the average modern jazz aficionado as Mssrs. Nash, Ries, Werner, Amsallem, and Reid, but her album, 27 EAST , was one of the most engaging new discs released in 2003. Like Reid, Brown considers her time in the JCW crucial to her on-going development as a composer: “The opportunity to study with Manny Albam, Jim McNeely, and Mike Abene motivated me to write regularly and diligently. Having a band of New York’s finest musicians to read through new works was absolutely invaluable. There is no better way to improve one’s writing skills than to hear what you’re writing as it develops. Through my work at BMI I was able to build a body of work, which I recorded in March 2003. Jim McNeely was my co-producer.”

McNeely also cites the work of JCW alumni Jamie Begian and Noriko Ueda (both Albam Commission winners), Joseph C. Phillips, Ed Neumeister, Mike Holober, Rob Middleton, and Jon Schapiro. Working with such a talented group of students has been beneficial to the faculty, as well. “To be honest,” McNeely says, “I’ve learned things from being part of the Workshop for some years. Once in a while,” he adds with a laugh, “someone will try something in their score and I’ll say, ‘Y’know, I’m gonna steal that.”

James Isaacs is a Grammy-nominated producer of the reissue Frank Sinatra: The Voice, The Columbia Years, 1943-1952 . He also contributes jazz pieces on a regular basis to the nationally-syndicated radio program Here & Now , writes a monthly jazz column for Boston magazine, and has written liner notes for numerous jazz and pop albums.

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