From BellaOnline's Blues & Jazz site
Guest Author: Elise MacDonald
Berklee: an alumna’s view
As a music educator, I’m often approached by parents of my students who have questions about music schools and conservatories. In answering, I try to ascertain what the interests of the student in question might be. Often, the inquiry is on behalf a kid other than one of my students, perhaps a niece or nephew.
Certainly, if the student’s interests lean towards classical music, I will recommend Oberlin, Eastman, Mannes, Juillard, New England Conservatory, Indiana, or one of a long list of other fine schools. But if the student has an interest in jazz, blues, or other contemporary music, I recommend Berklee --- and quite often, I stop there.
Founded in 1945 in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, Berklee got a dynamic, fast start with lots of returning World War II GIs pouring in the door as its first students. Arrangers and producers such as Quincy Jones and the recently departed Arif Mardin were among Berklee’s first prominent alumnae. More recently, artists such as Steely Dan pianist / vocalist Donald Fagen, vibraphonist Gary Burton, guitarist John Scofield, “Tonight Show” bandleader/guitarist Kevin Eubanks, and jazz saxophonist / composer Branford Marsalis received degrees from Berklee, along with a substantial list of rock performers as well (Melissa Etheridge, Aimee Mann, Paula Cole, and John Mayer all received a Berklee degree, or at least attended the school for a substantial period of time).
Studying at Berklee was like trying to drink water from a fire hose. There was always so much going on, so many student and faculty concerts to attend, so many famous names coming to the Berklee Performance Center to go see (as a student, if you worked as an usher, you could get into a concert for free). Visiting artists included everyone from up-and-coming young drummers like Terry Lynne Carrington (a Berklee alum) performing with alto saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s band, to legends-in-their-own-time like tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins or blues great BB King.
Walking through the lobby of Berklee’s main building on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston was always a sonic journey. Hints of rehearsals and performances being conducted in nearby ensemble rooms mixed with the sound of many languages being spoken (over a quarter of the school’s student body of nearly 4000 hails from other countries, one of the highest percentages of any undergraduate institution in the world). The throngs of students from Japan, Korea, Europe, Africa, and South America were particularly compelling classmates. Their reverence for jazz and blues was so very clear, and such a contrast to the average American college student, who knows (or cares?) little for what has been deemed “America’s Classical Music”: Jazz, and its elder, Blues.
Among conservatories, Berklee boasts an extremely high percentage of alums who actually work in the music business. Unlike many conservatories' ivory tower atmosphere, Berklee has always fancied itself something of a musical trade school: its main mission is to arm its graduates with very real, very useful tools, with a minimum of fuss. In this goal, the college is highly successful: even students who never set foot on the campus can now avail themselves of the Berklee approach to learning music, through an extensive set of publications and another more recent innovation: online learning, available in a limited but growing number of courses.
It’s been quite some time since I received my Music Education degree from Berklee. Somehow I expected that by now, my view of my alma mater would have tarnished somewhat. Rather, as I use at least a little of what I learned at the school every working day of my life, I grow only more grateful to the place. Anyone with a young person in his or her life who loves blues and jazz, and is considering studying contemporary music, should know about Berklee, as should any jazz / blues fan planning a trip to Boston.
Berklee’s presence in Boston gives the venerable city a disproportionately important position in the jazz and blues world. Boston is often required to take a back seat to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. in terms of the things cultural, but not so when it comes to jazz. The big names might get booked into the prominent New York clubs after their careers have started to catch fire, but for the youngest, most energetic raw talent, come to Boston and catch the world’s finest young talent (usually for free!) at Berklee.
