from The Seattle Times:
Photo by Daniel Sheehan
Ted Poor wants his University of Washington students to understand something: He can teach them a lot, but where they’ll really figure out how to play jazz is on the gig — outside the groves of academe.
“This music doesn’t live in school,” says the New York drummer, who has been doing three-week residencies each quarter at the UW this year and in the fall will become its newest jazz faculty member. “As wonderful as my education (at Eastman) was, my real education was playing every night. It’s not until you bring the music into the real world with your peers that it really comes to life and hits home.”
That’s a refreshing philosophy in an era when school programs have come to dominate jazz. Not surprisingly, Poor’s boss and decadelong musical colleague, jazz division head Cuong Vu, sees jazz the same way. Since Vu came to the university six years ago, he has encouraged students to take off the gown and get out on the town.
And they’ve done it, too, bringing some of the most exciting music in Seattle to the Café Racer sessions, Table and Chairs record label events and an improvised music festival they cheekily call ImpFest.
ImpFest V gets underway Wednesday with a free clinic on campus with guitarist Bill Frisell, whose official new position as an “affiliate artist” with the jazz division was also announced this week.
Continue reading at The Seattle Times.