History

Fall 2002

The KUIJSG was founded by eight faculty members from five departments at University of Kansas, with the long-term goal of establishing a Jazz Studies Center at KU. The original mission statement proposed that:

The Center would not be housed in any one department, but would operate as a cross-departmental meeting ground, think tank, and workshop, bringing together scholars and artists from throughout the university and beyond for colloquia, speakers series, and curriculum development of cross-listed interdisciplinary and team taught courses in jazz studies. Under a director, the Center would present public lectures and concerts, and facilitate study groups for faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and community members. The Center would serve as a clearing house for jazz researchers in the mid-west, as well as globally through utilizing digital library resources, and through developing relationships with major jazz centers of jazz research such as the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia, the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers, the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, and the Chicago Jazz Archive at University of Chicago. With our rich history of jazz performance, research, and writing, not to mention our proximity to Kansas City, KU is the historically right place for an internationally visible Jazz Studies Center.

In establishing the KUIJSG, we capitalize on a unique set of resources and circumstances, including:

  1. A core faculty from across the university committed to and qualified to teach Jazz Studies courses.
  2. A strong emphasis on jazz performance in the KU Department of Music and Dance. The KU Jazz Ensemble I specializes in playing contemporary repertory written for big band. Jazz Ensembles II and III tend to play music from the Swing Era through hard bop and other styles of the late 1950s and 1960s. There are also eight jazz combos of five to seven players each, and most years there are also two vocal jazz combos. The KU Jazz Festival, now in its twenty-sixth year, takes place over two to three days in March or April and includes players of international fame. The KU Jazz Workshop takes place for a week during the summer, including players of high school and college age and public school teachers who also take part in ensembles and study with visiting artists.
  3. The Wright Memorial Jazz Archive. When the cataloguing of this archive is complete, its rare audio recordings and print materials will attract jazz scholars nationally and internationally.
  4. Proximity to Kansas City, which along with New Orleans, Chicago and New York, was a key incubator of jazz. Resources include the American Jazz Museum, and the Mutual Musicians Foundation.
  5. KU's commitment to racial/gender diversity. Given that jazz has often served as a metaphor for freedom, and has functioned as a critical arena for contesting racial and gender issues, the study of jazz (in its production, reception and evaluation) is significant in terms of probing the goals and assumptions of a society aspiring to democracy and equal opportunity.

January 2003

KUIJSG receives generous seed funding from the KU Center for Research and the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. These funds will be used to build our reputation and to attract outside funding for major events, such as a Colloquium Series in conjunction with the KU Jazz Festival, including a major conference on the territory bands in the Spring of 2006.

April 9, 2003

The KUIJSG kicks off our exploration of our unique possibilities for collaboration by organizing a panel for the American Seminar at the Hall Center on April 9, 2003, entitled, "Improvising Interdisciplinarity: a Multi-vocal Conversation in Jazz Studies." With this panel, we set the groundwork for ongoing collaborations among us, and among other faculty, students, and community members interested in jazz.

September 25, 2003

With our seed funding, and additional support from the Office of the Chancellor, and our Departments, we bring Robert O'Meally, Director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University to consult with our group on how to maintain a successful jazz studies group, and to present a public lecture, entitled "Louis Armstrong's Comic Masks." The KU Jazz Combo #1 presented by KU Jazz Director Dan Gailey open this "Evening of Jazz Studies" before a full house in Alderson Auditorium in the KU Student Union.

March 4-5, 2004

The first KU Interdisciplinary Jazz Studies Colloquium, is held in conjunction with the 27th Annual KU Jazz Festival, directed by Dan Gailey. The theme was"Jazz Changes."

March 3, 2005

The second KU Interdisciplinary Jazz Studies Colloquim, "Improvising America," is held in conjunction with "Reading, Writing, Performing America," and interdisciplinary conference, and the 28th Annual Ku Jazz Festival.

March 3, 2006

The third KU Interdisciplinary Jazz Studies Colloquium takes as its theme: "Territory Bands, Then and Now."

March 30, 2007

The fourth KU Interdisciplinary Jazz Studies Colloquium: "What's Avant-Garde about the Avant-Garde."