On the Road with Mike Vax

More thoughts on the JEN Convention

This blog stuff is very interesting.  When one is working 14-16 hour days, it is hard to find time to write my stories and feelings, but I will try to keep up better in the future.  It seems like the best place to work on this is on airplanes.

“Working on my Blog”

(No other distractions and no Internet to get in the way!)  So I am writing this on the beginning of a month-long clinic tour that starts with the Texas Music Educators Convention in San Antonio.  Then it’s off on the road with a rental car for about 1800 miles in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.  (More on this trip soon.)

Now that I have given an overview, I guess I should do a more in depth report on the trip that Peggy and I took to Louisville, KY for the Jazz Education Network Convention.

As I said before we took a red-eye flight to get there, as it was the only way to
be there in time for the President’s reception for the Founding Members.  Peggy has decided that those all night flights are NOT for her.  (I don’t blame her at all, but sometimes I have no choice, given my schedule.) Peggy took a nice nap all afternoon and I, being my usual self, went down to see what all was happening and start saying hello to old friends.  One of the greatest things about conventions such as this one is that you get to see people who have become good friends, but you just can’t see them very often.
In the music and education business that is certainly true.

Since the demise of IAJE, there was a void in the Jazz Education community and JEN
has certainly taken the reigns and filled that void in a rapid manner.  In the span of just a few years, they have formed the new organization and already presented three very fine conventions.  These conventions are a wonderful combination of concerts, clinics and an all-around good “hang.”

On Wednesday evening, Lew Fisher hosted the President’s reception for all of the
Founding Members and sponsors of the convention.  Good food, some drink and lots of good friends and some new acquaintances were the rule of the evening.  It was a pleasure to see people such as Rufus Reed and his wife, Mary Jo Papich (the first president of JEN and an old friend from my Kenton days), Bruce Gates from the Airmen of Note and now living in Phoenix, Jim and Lana Widner, and so many others.  One person whom I really enjoyed seeing was Andrew Surmani.

Andrew Surmani

 Andrew was my trumpet student at least 20 years ago.  He is now president of Alfred Publishing and also the president-elect of JEN.  He is a great guy and will do great things
for JEN.  I must compliment the JEN people for having the foresight to elect a person who is in the Music Business,
rather than being an educator.  It is one thing to have educators lead such an organization, but with Andrew it will
bring a whole new perspective to everything. I know he will do a great job!

I spent much of each day at either the Getzen booth or our FBBJ table.  Peggy was a real trouper as well and manned our table much of the time that I couldn’t be there.  We gave out lots of information on Friends of Big Band Jazz, The Stan Kenton Alumni Band, The Prescott Jazz Summit and my own
clinic bookings.  Our table was in the
foyer outside of the ballrooms where the instrument company and college booths
were located.  The only problem with our location was that people were always in a hurry to get to the next event as they walked through our hallway.  We sure would have loved for more of them to stop to talk to us, and I know others who paid for tables felt the same way.  One good thing was that the JEN people did think about having these tables that weren’t as expensive as a whole booth inside of the ballrooms.  I’m not sure what could be done to get the people in attendance to actually stop and talk to those of us who had tables there, but I hope something might happen at future JEN conventions to facilitate that.

On Thursday afternoon I was guest soloist with the Thelma-Yellin Big Band from
Isreal.

Thelma Yellin Big Band from Israel

This school is an arts magnet school for the whole country – sort of like what Interlochen is here in the USA.  The band was VERY good and the conductor had the students really well prepared for their performance.  The only thing that was a little weird for this performance was the fact that the administrator who I had been dealing with, misunderstood what I was supposed to do with them, so they never rehearsed the arrangements that I had sent them.  I know – seems strange that he didn’t think about why I had sent the arrangements, huh? I have to admit that I was more than a little upset with this turn of events, but I did play on a nice arrangement of “  that they had scheduled for the concert anyway.”  The kids were wonderful musicians – with some really strong jazz soloists – and very friendly.  They made me feel right at home, even though
I was a little put off that we couldn’t do any of my charts.

This school is an arts magnet school for the whole country – sort of like what Interlochen is here in the USA.  The band was VERY good and the conductor had the students really well prepared for their performance.  The only thing that was a little weird for this performance was the fact that the administrator who I had been dealing
with, misunderstood what I was supposed to do with them, so they never
rehearsed the arrangements that I had sent them.  I know – seems strange that he didn’t think about why I had sent the arrangements, huh? I have to admit that I was more than a little upset with this turn of events, but I did play on a nice arrangement of “  that they had scheduled for the concert anyway.”  The kids were wonderful musicians – with some really strong jazz soloists – and very friendly.  They made me feel right at home, even though
I was a little put off that we couldn’t do any of my charts.

These students had traveled half way around the world to perform for the convention
and I felt very bad for them that there were only about 50 people in the audience for their concert.  As I talked about in my last installment, there were just too many things scheduled at the same time as our performance.

There were many wonderful performances and clinics that I didn’t get to attend,
mainly because of doing business at our table and in the Getzen booth.  It is a little frustrating that one can’t be in two places at once at these conventions,

"What should I do?"

but after all, we were there to promote our endeavors and to work on bookings and do the usual networking.  One of the delights of the weekend was to see Gwen Terry there with her own table, promoting Clark Terry’s new autobiography.

Clark Terry's Autobiography

She did very well at her table and sold over 100 copies of the book, as well as having hundreds of people sign a large banner that would be presented to Clark, wishing him speedy recovery from his latest operation.  He is 91 years “young,”

Clark Terry

and an inspiration to us all.  Be sure to get his book, it is a true history of jazz and big band music and a real eye-opener as to how black musicians were treated on the road back in the 30’s and 40’s.  It doesn’t even feel like you are reading, since it is written just like he was sitting there talking to you with that happy voice of his.

It was great to hear such musicians as Byron Stripling with his Columbus Jazz
Orchestra, Jamey Aebersold and his quartet, Mel Martin and my old student from
Kenton Clinic days – Bobby Watson in a quintet situation, and many others.  I also enjoyed Jeff Sultanof’s clinic on music notation and music publishing.
Jeff is an old “Kentonia” friend and has actually traveled on the bus
with us on a Kenton Alumni Band tour.  If I tried to write about every single thing, it would take pages! The next JEN convention is in Atlanta, Ga, the first weekend in January of 2013.  I highly recommend attending!

Mike Vax
vaxtrpts@aol.com
www.mikevax.net
www.bigbandjazz.net
www.prescottjazz.com
www.getzen.com