Releasing the Imagination: A Community Partnership Between Detroit Public Schools and the Detroit Jazz Festival
Patricia A. Hall
The City of Detroit is a community presently defined by negative connota- tions—violence, poverty, political cor- ruption and failing educational systems. However, there is a community in De- troit that goes mostly un-reported—the community of musicians—where phi- lanthropists, educators and students have partnered to create a vision of pride and hope for a successful future. Politically and economically, Detroit is defined by poverty and its accom- panying social ills, yet the worldwide community of musicians looks beyond that definition, recognizing the city for its many innovations in music. De- troit’s musicians are highly respected throughout the world for jazz, rock and electronic music. The City is known for being at the forefront of music inno- vation, a tradition that has roots in the early 20th century when Harry P. Guy started writing music for the Jerome H. Remick Publishing Company. Mu- sic greats such as Charlie Parker, Jelly Roll Morton, and John Coltrane have repeatedly come to Detroit to bond with the City’s jazz musicians. Detroit has also produced its own royalty— Donald Byrd, James Carter, Regina Carter, Ron Carter, Paul Chambers, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Fuller, Sir Ro- land Hanna, Barry Harris, Teddy Har- ris, Yusef Lateef, Kirk Lightsey, Har- old McKinney, Charles McPherson, Gerald Wilson, and of course, Motown greats like Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder. The common thread among all of these Detroit-based musicians is their attendance at Detroit Public Schools.
Like many other public school music programs throughout the nation, De- troit’s music program has been reduced to accommodate school reforms and a
37 lack of funding. As parents become
more and more concerned with their children’s ability to make a living, and as funds supporting educational pro- grams are decreased, music programs are first on the chopping block when administrators look for ways to cut ex- penses. Because music is such a vital part of the human experience, those in charge of music programs are looking outside of the educational system for support, and music-related organiza- tions have been reaching out to public schools to help shore up their music programs.
Some well-known foundations that have provided much needed assistance to public school music programs in- clude Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, VH-1, the Grammy Foundation, the NAMM Foundation, and the Music Empowers Foundation. On a more lo- cal level, the Office of Fine Arts Edu- cation at Detroit Public Schools has established partnerships with organi- zations such as the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, College for Creative Studies, Michi- gan State University, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and most recently, the Jazz Infusion pro- gram, a partnership with Detroit Jazz Festival’s Education Division.
The partnership between the Detroit Jazz Festival (DJF) and Detroit Public Schools (DPS) began with a conversa- tion in 2007 between former Director of Fine Arts at DPS, Benjamin Pruitt, former Director of the Detroit Jazz Festival, Terri Pontremoli, and John Roberts, who was the Education Co- ordinator for DJF. In recent telephone interview and email communications, Pruitt pointed out that before Pontrom-
eli came on board, DJF was partnered with the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association (MSBOA) and the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE). Jazz bands that per- formed at the MSBOA’s rated festivals and received a 1 rating (the highest) would be eligible to participate in the Detroit Jazz Festival. MSBOA and the IAJE worked together on the com- mittee that selected and critiqued the bands performing at the Festival. Indi- vidual judges included Detroit-based jazz masters such as Harold McKinney, Marcus Belgrave, Ernie Rogers, Virgil Rogers and Lou Smith. Although Cass Technical High School participated in the Festival, most Detroit schools were not represented.
In 2006, Gretchen Valade took over the management of the DJF and hired Terri Pontremoli from Cleveland to be exec- utive/artistic director. One of Pontrem- oli’s major concerns was the method by which middle and high school students were selected to perform at the Festi- val, which resulted in a low turn out for Detroit students. Pontremoli and Rob- erts approached Pruitt to establish a partnership with DPS, hoping to ensure that more Detroit public school stu- dents were represented, and more im- portantly, to ensure that jazz, which at that time was declining nationwide as an art form, would continue to evolve. Pruitt thinks there were two reasons DPS students were not involved in the Festival. The first reason was DPS stu- dents were not eligible for consider- ation at the DJF because the majority of DPS schools did not participate in the MSBOA rated festivals.
Second,
many music teachers did not feel se- cure in their own abilities to develop jazz programs; therefore, fewer public
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