The Relevance of Jazz History in Twenty-First Century British Jazz Practice and Pedagogy

In this discussion of jazz education, I contrast the development of traditions and practices in Britain with the indigenous practices of North America. In both cases, I categorize methods of jazz education into informal and formal schools of training, with the former focusing on early schemes of oral learning, and the latter on later codified systems. History has a particularly important role in three main areas of jazz education: (1) transgenerational mentors, (2) learning from recordings, and (3) repertory bands.