Education in jazz: Acclaimed musician teaching class at Oberlin College
Cindy Leise | The Chronicle-Telegram
OBERLIN — Students enter Marcus Belgrave’s Advanced Jazz Improvisation III class at Oberlin College and begin jamming without a word.
Then the man himself — whose trumpet can be heard on Motown classics “My Girl” and “Dancing in the Streets” — saunters in and distributes sheet music for “Visa” by Charlie Parker.
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| JASON MILLER / CHRONICLE |
| Jazz musician Marcus Belgrave plays his trumpet along with his students at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he is teaching as visiting professor. |
“Sing it first, and then we’ll play it,” Belgrave says quietly.
The six students — trumpet players Miller Tinkerhess and Greg Zilboorg, bass players LaBria Bonet and Emma Dayhuff, piano player Andrew Lawrence and drummer Jake Robinson — bebop through the music and are ready to play.
What sounds like a coherent, cool jazz sound from the young musicians is fodder for instruction from Belgrave, who burst on the jazz scene as an 18-year-old in Ray Charles’ band.
Belgrave, a visiting professor, joined the faculty in 2001.
“Leave that quarter-note off,” he tells Dayhuff as she plays the Parker tune.
“This time, fill in the empty spaces,” he instructs drummer Jake Robinson.
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Marcus Belgrave Performed with: Ray Charles, Max Roach, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin, Wynton Marsalis and Joe Henderson; now touring in “A Tribute to Louis Armstrong.” Background: Co-founder of the jazz studies program at Detroit Metro Arts Complex, original faculty member at Oakland University jazz studies program, founder of Jazz Development Workshop in Detroit Awards: Louis Armstrong Award, Benny Golson Jazz Master Award, Arts Midwest Jazz Master Award, Michigan Governor’s Award Recordings: More than 30, including “The Best of Ray Charles,” “Jazz at Lincoln Center,” “Marcus Belgrave Presents” and “Beauty Surrounds Us,” a 2006 jazz recording with Oberlin faculty. |
“Take off fast — riff!” he urges piano player Andrew Lawrence.
“Bass player, don’t play cello, play bass,” he orders Dayhuff.
Belgrave isn’t very tall, and his round face beams with constant good humor, but he is a commanding presence nonetheless.
A half-hour flies by as Belgrave’s attention focuses on students one-by-one in a casual, matter-of-fact way.
He spends time working with bass players Bonet and Dayhuff, who coax big sounds out of their huge pot-bellied instruments.
“You have to think more rhythmically than chord-ally — play in and out of the tune,” Belgrave says.
The goal of improvisation — the hallmark of modern jazz — is to use the music as a starting point.
Belgrave got his start in music at age 6, learning from his father, a bugler in World War I.
Over the years, he’s met some wonderful people, he says.
When Belgrave was 12, he got to hear Parker play, but the sound was a little too complicated for him at the time.
When he was hired for The Ray Charles Band, the blind musician became “like an extension of my dad,” Belgrave says. “Because he was blind, he could hear things other people couldn’t.”
Frank Sinatra “was a beautiful guy,” while Miles Davis “was nasty sometimes because he wouldn’t want to be bothered,” Belgrave remembers.
Midway through the class, another jazz legend, drummer Billy Hart, enters the practice room at Hale’s Gymnasium.
That seems like a cue for Belgrave to focus on drummer Jake Robinson.
“Change it up — it gets monotonous,” Belgrave tells Robinson. “We are all our own drummers inside, so you have to make the drum a musical thing.”
There is a pause in the playing while Hart, assistant professor of jazz percussion, talks about recent gigs and drum preferences of various musicians.
Belgrave urges Hart to sit down at the drums.
“Forgive me for what I do,” Hart jokes.
As Hart sets the pace, Bonet and Dayfull pluck at their strings like there is no tomorrow.
As he leaves the building, Hart says the college is fortunate to have Belgrave on its staff.
“Marcus Belgrave is a national treasure,” Hart says. “He communicates well with younger people and he’s turned out about 10 of the most prolific — if not famous — jazz musicians on the scene today.”
Contact Cindy Leise at 653-6250 or cleise@chroniclet.com.
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Filed by Cindy Leise | The Chronicle-Telegram September 28th, 2007 in Top Stories. Popularity: 2% |
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