Stanley COWELL (Jazz Hot 631)


Stanley Cowell is one of the forgotten masters of jazz piano. Maybe he has immersed himself in teaching too unselfishly to be acknowledged by the public and the media. Still he can boast a very intense discography. You will find a very long article about the pianist from Toledo with a complete discography in our issue n°586 (December 2001) and in our Special issue about Art Tatum (2002).
He was the founder of Strata-East Records with Charles Tolliver and remains one of the most brilliant post-McCoy Tyner pianists, as well as an extremely original composer.
Now a teacher at Rutger’s University, he has accepted to talk about his teaching practice.

A conversation with Jean Szlamowicz


Jazz Hot : Who were your initial models?
Stanley Cowell : My earliest models were the lyrical pianists Hank Jones, Red Garland, Tommy Flanagan, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly. But I heard local pianists in my hometown, too, like Claude Black, Art Tatum, Kirk Lightsey, Barry Harris, and Alice McLeodColtrane. Later, I gravitated to Monk, Tyner and other styles.

Did you go through a formal musical training? Why? What did it bring to you as opposed to what you already had?
My parents insisted on formal training - which I enjoyed - because they recognized the value of it for my musical development and financial security in the future. My two older sisters taught me to read music when I was 3 years old. Being exposed to many of the great classical works and to some of the greatest jazz pianists during my early years made hearing and conceptualizing jazz a lot easier. There were no accessible jazz schools for me at that time.

Was the church an important part of your musical learning process?
Yes. I was organist and, for a while, choir director in an Episcopal church in my teens, and I used to improvise the preludes and postludes.

What turned you on to teaching?
I never wanted to teach. Teaching approached me first in 1973 for two years at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, and again in 1981. I stayed with the 1981 position at Lehman College, City University of New York until 2000, when I applied to teach in the well-known jazz program at Rutgers University's Mason Gross Scool of the Arts in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

What is your current position?
I teach jazz piano to jazz piano majors in our Bachelor and Master of Music degree programs at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers - The State Universty of New Jersey. Currently, I am Chair of the Jazz Area of the Music Department.

How does one teach jazz?
All students must audition in order to be accepted in our programs. They therefore have already studied their instruments for a few years and learned how to play jazz by being in school jazz bands or start-up professional groups. Some students accepted into our Masters program are full professional musicians and/or teachers. So, we do not teach students how to play as if they knew nothing about jazz, we are helping them continue to develop their music while they earn a degree.

Is there a historical dimension to your teaching?
Yes. In my personal teaching of jazz piano, the student must master repertoire from the earliest period to the latest styles and approaches. Of course, Jazz History courses are a requirement in our curriculum.

Is there an emphasis on giving general tools or specifically jazz tips?
I and my teaching colleagues apply both methods, but initially start by following general methods that can help the largest number of students develop jazz skills in the typical classroom approach. Specific methods and personal tips are also utilized when they can be seen to be beneficial. Too many tips can create the negative impression with students implying that tips and shortcuts as opposed to consistent study and application is somehow a faster, magic way to learning jazz.

Is your teaching about how you compose/ play personally or how one should go about playing/ composing or how musicians in jazz have been known to play/compose? In other words, is it more a master-class, a technical course or a historical course?
Again, my teaching has an historical emphasis but ultimately I try to instill in the student a sense of confidence in her/himself to experiment and to develop her/his ideas and to evolve to become more creative and non-imitative. My piano teaching includes all that you mention. Over several years, the development of a student is potentially unlimited. I also teach Keyboard Harmony to non-pianists, and Improvisation to fourth year and graduate students.

What is special about your teaching?
I stress the development of the rhythm elements of jazz, the efficiency of playing the piano, the repertoire, the goal of performance, and expansion of technique via tonal resources - all these things so that the student can become idiomatically and stylistically credible.

What is special about Rutgers?
Rutgers is an historic university in America (www.rutgers.edu). Originally an Ivy League school associated with the likes of Harvard, Yale and Princeton. It is now the State University of New Jersey. I teach within the University in the Music Department of Mason Gross School of the Arts, which is quite young - only 21 years old. The music student therefore has the opportunity to pursue her/his studies in a music conservatory but within a university environment.

Who teaches there?
There are many famous teachers, artists and researchers at Rutgers. In the Jazz Area of the Music Department are my great colleagues: Ralph Bowen (saxophone, Jazz Ensemble, theory), William Fielder (trumpet, history), Conrad Herwig (trombone, composition/arranging, improvisation ), Vic Jurusz (a.k.a., Juris) on guitar, Mike Richmond (bass), Victor Lewis (dm). We all coach one or more chamber jazz ensembles.

Is it possible to teach creativity ? One paradox about jazz is that it didn’t evolve from the universe of formal, "serious" music: jazz musicians didn’t necessarily go to school to learn jazz originally, even if many learnt the instrument in school…
Writers study writing techniques, musicians study musical techniques. Creativity is an ability all humans possess, as is faith. The degree to which one can realize her/his creativity in jazz or any art is related to study. There exists now, for over fifty years, a vast body of codified and published materials on jazz history, performance practices, technical studies, original compositions and recordings that can inform the jazz teacher and student. Some of us will become more creative than others for a variety of reasons.

Also, the bandstand and the classroom are very different places: is it necessarily in school that one learns the musical truth?
Ah! The classroom and the educational institutions do not suffice for the student to know and express the "real musical truth." The wisdom to use all that knowledge comes from real life living, loving, suffering, and real life performing situations.

Also, how are the cultural elements being approached in the teaching?
Other than the historical overview of the development of jazz in America, short shrift has been given to its evolution in other part of the world. I believe that is changing as American jazz students learn about musicians in Europe, Asia, Australia, South America through research projects and independent studies. Our Jazz Area recently cosponsored a lecture at Rutgers by a Berlin clubowner and drummer, Thomas Fulbier who spoke on the history of German jazz. There are always several cross cultural presentations in most universities. Many of them in the humanities are including jazz because they cannot avoid the impact this music has had on culture.

Stanley Cowell, Professor
e-mail : scowell@rci.rutgers.edu