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There have been many staff members associated with EE over the years. Our staff profiles will show how EE has impacted the people who made it happen.
Year(s) at JALC 1997–present
Current Occupation Director of Education, Jazz at Lincoln Center—New York, NY
How were/are you involved with EE?
Ever since I was in high school band and took a trip to NYC, I wanted to live here. In 1997, I interviewed for a job as Assistant to our first Executive Director, Rob Gibson. I got the job, and six months later moved into the Education department to run EE, and it was such a great fit. I ran the program for eight years and we grew it from 26 states to all 50 and Canada as well as starting the Band Director Academy in 1999. I’ve now been working on it for 13 of the 15 years.
What is your best EE memory?
There are so many! From the big moments like April 29, 1999—celebrating the Ellington Centennial with 20 finalist bands and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on the plaza at Lincoln Center playing “C-Jam Blues” to random meetings of EE alumni at various events we do. The years of hosting the festival in multiple venues around the city with nine rehearsal sites around Lincoln Center or Times Square or dinner/jam sessions at the Copacabana were always such logistical challenges. For the 10th Anniversary in 2005, it was so awesome to bring it all under one roof in our new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall - The House of Swing. The incredible team of staff, volunteers, and interns working behind the scenes each year with a dedication to excellence that mirrors the work of the finalist bands—is always so inspiring.
There are so many great memories of kids learning about the music and seeing light bulbs go off. Particularly at the in-school workshops. They have always been one of my favorite elements of the program. One story comes to mind of a workshop at Roosevelt High School in Seattle with Carl Allen as the clinician and the drummer he was working with. The drummer was really struggling and Carl was being kind of hard on him and talking to him about how to outline the form on the drums, going into technicalities, and really, really pushing this kid. To the point where the kid was sort of on the edge of “I don’t know if I can do this…can I rise to the occasion?” By the end of the workshop, Carl turned it around, and the student’s motivation was back. Three weeks later he came to the Festival and he had been working so hard – you could tell. At his competition performance he did exactly what Carl had asked him to do on “Oclupaca”—to really outline the form of the tune in his playing - where he could do a big crescendo, where he should hold back, how to shape the transition from a latin groove to swing, etc. He did it and when he came off stage exclaimed, “I did it, I did it! I did what he said I could do!” He ended up winning an outstanding drummer award that year. I’ve been able to see the evolution of student musicians being challenged to rise to that next level, and then getting there. That pride, joy and confidence builds in so many of our students through the program.
Another big memory has to do with the making of the film CHOPS. Joanna Massey got a call one day from the band director at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts saying that there was a dad doing a documentary on their band and he asked if he could film the Ron Carter workshop they were having in preparation for EE. So Joanna said, of course, because we always let parents videotape. A couple weeks after that, we get a call from the production company and they told us that they wanted to come film at our event to make a documentary about these kids coming to New York. It was a massive undertaking. At the time, we were told that EE would probably be 10-20 minutes of an hour-and-a-half film because they’d been following these seven kids and the story was supposed to follow each of these students, only half of whom were in the EE band. Then, over the festival weekend, after they played, these kids were so dedicated. They were one of the coolest ensembles, not because they were being filmed, but because of the love that they had for each other. What you see in the film is absolutely true. They worked so hard, they were so dedicated. They gave a standing ovation to every other band that played. And you just felt it; they were great. And then you saw their performance and saw the response and, as it turns out, they were in the top three. After they won the competition, the director said, “I think my movie just changed.” They came to show us a rough cut of the film the following December and Essentially Ellington wasn’t just a part of the film, it was the feature of the film.
The thing that’s great about the story in CHOPS is it happens every year at EE. They didn’t just happen to capture the one time that a band has worked this hard and done this well. All of our 15 bands go through that experience every year. What you leave with is not about the competition, it’s about everybody being a winner.
How has EE influenced your life?
Significantly—both professionally and personally.
Professionally—I feel so fortunate to have found a position that connects with my passion to support quality music education – especially jazz. To work on a program where striving for excellence, attention to detail, listening, responding, improvising, and having a good time are all valued—that’s a great place to be.
Also amazing is seeing the power that music and jazz and community have to make a positive difference and have positive effects on multiple lives. It’s not just the kids who have benefited from this...it’s not just the band directors—it’s their parents and their supporters they have in each of their communities, rooting these students on… it’s the staff and volunteers who come together.
Another important dimension to the program is that all of the bands get the music and study the music, whether or not they compete and whether or not they come to New York. The bands get to study the music of Duke Ellington and other big band composers and arrangers, which is music that is well-written, beautifully arranged and so different from a lot of the stock arrangements. This is hard music, so they’re playing what professional musicians play and seeing kids rise to that challenge and embrace that challenge.
One of my favorite letters we got one year was from a band director in California who said, “I’m just writing to say thank you. We’re a postage stamp-size town. We would never think about studying a transcription of what Duke Ellington’s orchestra played. But you all sent us six. And we pulled out ‘Sophisticated Lady’ and my sax player decided he wanted to do it and I’ve got to thank you. This has become the favorite piece of all my kids. They all love it…we look forward to playing it…it’s probably the hardest thing we’ve done.” That response is as much what the program is about as winning or being a finalist in New York. The real mission of EE is getting great music into the hands of high school jazz bands around the country.
Personally, the impact of EE can’t be more significant for me—I met my husband through EE. He was a high school jazz band director at a school in Queens, and in February, 1999 he handed in his tape for the competition to me in person. There’s a much longer story behind this, but eventually we got engaged that November at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Ellington Gala, “Love You Madly” and that was our song at our wedding. We now have two kids, and will celebrate our 10th Anniversary this August.
Year(s) at JALC 1995–present
Current Occupation Executive Producer; Jazz at Lincoln Center—New York, NY
How were/are you involved with EE ?
I was hired to start the program for Essentially Ellington. Wynton Marsalis started with Jazz at Lincoln Center when it was just a summer program in 1987, which then became a year-round program in 1991-92. One of the things he had said from those beginning days—and then repeated when it became a year-round program—is that our educational programs need to be on the same level as our concert performances and tours. And the way to start this was to create a mechanism to get Duke Ellington’s music into high school jazz band rooms because there isn’t enough good, original-arrangement music in high schools.
Wynton stressed it needed to be Ellington because he has 2,000 compositions so there’s a lot to choose from. He talked about how Ellington wrote in every style across different time periods and he really wanted this to be our signature program. Then, in 1994, one of the board members stepped up and gave Jazz at Lincoln Center a multi-year leadership gift that would fund an education director and kick-start what is now Essentially Ellington, and that board member’s name is Jack Rudin. He, along with his wife, Susan, and their foundation, made this gift in 1994, which then enabled Jazz at Lincoln Center to start a search for an education director. I was lucky enough to be selected.
So that’s how it all started. And then one of the things I had to do immediately was figure out how to launch this program…what were the components going to be. I had to do a business plan and start meeting people who could provide mailing lists and tell me the state of the field. And then we launched the first Essentially Ellington in 1995, which was just a tri-state competition with New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. And then the next year it was 13 states in the Northeast, and the following year it was 26 states east of the Mississippi. Then, in the fourth year, which happened to be the 100th birthday of Ellington, we expanded it to all 50 states and Canada and U.S. schools abroad.
Essentially Ellington was happily and enthusiastically received by many, but a lot of the schools were reluctant and daunted by trying to play Ellington’s music because they thought they wouldn’t be able to – that it would be too hard. But many of them actually overcame their fears and we heard numerous stories about how there was nothing else like this program and they were so glad that they had the chance to do it because it makes the students work at it. The incentive is not only getting the music, but also having the chance to go on to the finals.
Another thing we wanted to do from the beginning was to ensure there would be a lot of kindness and support during the program. It was important to Wynton and to all of us to create a nurturing environment for the actual festival so different schools and kids in different schools would support the other schools, and the staff, musicians and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra were all closely involved so that it was like a family affair. It was really important to have Essentially Ellington not be cold but have it feel warm and supportive.
What is your best EE memory?
I remember one time with the judges who were pre-judging the finalists’ tapes. We were in a room listening to the bands during the second year and two of the judges happened to be Illinois Jacquet and John Lewis. John Lewis, who is the founder of the Modern Jazz Quartet and a pianist and composer, was a very elegant, refined guy. And Illinois Jacquet was from the plains of Texas and played with Count Basie and did really hard-swinging rough-around-the edges jazz. They were a stark study in contrasts. So Illinois kept saying, “Why are they playing the same music over again? Don’t they know that somebody already played that?” It was hilarious and John would get very upset with him and say, “Just listen! They’re supposed to be playing the same music—they’re being judged on playing the same music!”
In 1997, Wynton and the members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra were watching the performances and all of a sudden this band got up to perform and they were playing a Billy Strayhorn ballad. Well, the soloist was this 15-year-old alto saxophone player and everyone just completely cheered her on and she almost fainted! There was such a raucous reaction because she was SO, SO good. Her name was Erica von Kleist and she went on to be in the first jazz class at Juilliard and she has been a regular performer at Jazz at Lincoln Center. And that was 13 years ago! But it was great fun to see that kind of reaction and support for her the first time out.
One of the first workshops we did with one of the finalist bands was in the Finger Lakes area of New York in a town called Canandaigua. I was with Jon Faddis, and we were conducting the workshop and suddenly the school had a fire drill! Well, we were only there for a short period of time, so instead of just shutting down and leaving because the whole school closed down, he took the entire band outside and rehearsed them in the parking lot! Nothing would stop their preparation for the Essentially Ellington festival!
How has EE influenced your life?
During the first few years of the program there was a young bass player from LaGuardia High School in New York who was in a finalist band. Now he is the bassist with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra—and he’s 30 years old and now has two children. He was 15 when I met him! It’s so inspiring to have met and known all of these EE participants from that long ago and they’re still making a big contribution to jazz music today. But even those who didn’t go on in jazz still participate as a very lively alumni group, from band parents and directors to students and musicians who keep in touch after all these years.
One thing I’m really proud of, too, is the kind of support that the institution and its funders continue to make to EE. And the kind of leadership that Erika Floreska and Joanna Massey and their entire team have exhibited since taking over the program. It’s nice to see the banner still waving high.
Year(s) worked at JALC 1990-present
Current Occupation Staff Photographer; Jazz at Lincoln Center—New York, NY
What is your EE story? How did you get involved?
I have been the staff photographer since the beginning—since 1990, so it’s always been part of my job.
What is your best EE memory?
The one special moment each year is when the top three bands are announced at the Festival. There’s a lot of pandemonium and jumping up and hugging and congratulating. You can count on that pretty much every year to happen. The kids put so much time and effort into this and they’ve been practicing all year all of a sudden it’s come to fruition for them. So it’s just like winning a championship, but, you know, they’ve all already won. That’s the defining moment for me and I try to capture it all the time.
The photo I like to get is the one when the bands are playing on stage with Duke Ellington in the back looking over their shoulder. There’s a big picture of Duke in the back on a big banner. He’s looking down on the bands—approving or disapproving.
The big thing is that these kids are learning music that they would never get to learn. Also, they’re learning the history that they would never learn. They learn the charts; they learn Duke Ellington’s music.
How has EE influenced YOUR life?
The thing about it is you never know what these kids are getting from it. I can just imagine that what they’re getting is, they’re coming to New York for the first time—most of them—and they’re seeing all these people and sometimes they see someone they’ve heard about or read about or they’ve listened to on their albums and you just see it on their faces—they’re just awe-inspired. So that’s something that’s special for me. That reinfuses the fact that this is happening for me. This is something we should be doing every year because it definitely influences their lives.
Year(s) at JALC 1999–2006, Manager of Public Programming—Education
Current Occupation Development Coordinator, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, Texas
How were/are you involved with EE?
When I was hired by Jazz at Lincoln Center in 1999, I was hired to work on Essentially Ellington. Over the course of the next four years, I did that full-time, so I had a great deal of involvement with the program. And, in my seven years at Jazz at Lincoln Center, I continued to be a part of the Education department, and therefore a part of Essentially Ellington.
What is your best EE memory?
I have a very special memory of Essentially Ellington and that was tour managing Essentially Ellington: Down Under, which was a two-and-a-half week Essentially Ellington program that took place in Perth, Australia. I was out there with Ron Carter and Terell Stafford doing in-school workshops, which culminated in a festival with a competition and concert at the Outdoor Amphitheatre at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
This was an international expansion of EE. Essentially Ellington: Down Under was a collaboration between Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. In 2002, we conducted in-school workshops with various high school jazz bands in Perth. Those schools, much like here in the States, had the opportunity to enter themselves into a competition. They had local adjudicators, but the clinicians were sent by Jazz at Lincoln Center, and I went along with them for the duration of that tour to be the liaison for the organization. The model was based on the Essentially Ellington program in the United States.
For the Australians, there was this “double-awe” with people coming from so far away to work with them personally. The schools that we worked with there had signed up for the program, and because it was such a small community, they all got to participate in these in-school workshops that were produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center. So, for them, it was such a rare opportunity to meet these working, professional musicians who had come so very, very far.
How has EE influenced your life?
The program is so inherently unique among education programs and that makes it really special to me because there just really isn’t anything like it. And once you’ve been a part of something like that, it really raises your level of expectations. Having that experience so early in my career changed me. I know that I challenge myself and expect more of others from that EE experience.
Working with the students is definitely life-impacting because they are so talented; it’s such an important transitional moment in their lives, that it really is a continual reminder that hard work mixed with ambition and talent pays off. To see what they’re doing now in their lives…I have some autographed CDs from a couple of my former Essentially Ellington students and seeing them again at that point in their lives I think is really life-changing.
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