A Model Jazz History Program for the United States: Building Jazz Audiences in the Twenty-First Century

The newly created jazz studies program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln includes not only traditional historical surveys of jazz history, but also an annual “historical concert” featuring music from either a seminal recording or a historically significant artist/group. The essay argues that if the academy is the chief generator of jazz students in the country, then the academy must also take the lead in developing jazz audiences for those students.