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Each year during the January interim session, students taking the New York Jazz Experience course travel to New York City to learn about the innovative art form from renowned jazz musicians.
Led by Larry Stockton, professor and head of music, the course introduces students to the New York jazz community through concerts, jam sessions, conversations with artists, historical film, oral histories, and readings.
“The major value of this course is that students will experience jazz as a living art form – attending performances, meeting jazz artists, and exploring the music in the environment in which it flourishes,” says Stockton, who has offered the class each January since 1986. “The course goes beyond recordings and articles. Jazz clubs and concerts become our living laboratory.”
The New York portion of the course has included class sessions at clubs including Birdland, Blue Note, Knitting Factory, Jazz Standard, and Sweet Rhythm. Performers with whom students have worked in the past include Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Sarah Vaughan, Cab Calloway, Paquito D’Rivera, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Betty Carter.
Open to all Lafayette students, the course begins with a one-week introductory session on campus. Students take a hands-on practical approach to prepare for the second week of live performances. They explore various styles and genres while learning to understand and appreciate the musical elements that comprise a jazz listening experience.
During the second week of the intensive course, students stay in New York City to attend concerts, visit jazz clubs, and hear lectures and demos performed by some of the city’s leading musicians. Students also visit one of the world’s best jazz research facilities, Rutgers Jazz Institute at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. At Rutgers, students receive a guided exploration of resources to help prepare them for individual and small group presentations that conclude the course back at Lafayette in the third week.
Stockton notes that the course has fostered a lasting appreciation for jazz in many of his past students. Many attend performances on their own and begin CD collections after learning the fundamentals through the New York Jazz Experience. Often, past students join Stockton’s current class at club performances in the city.
“Students, colleagues here and at other institutions, and the performers who teach for us in New York have always been enthusiastic about this course,” says Stockton. “I will always remember a comment by Dizzy Gillespie, a jazz legend who briefly chatted with our class a few months before his death, ‘You folks are doing it the right way. There is only one way to learn jazz and that is to live it first-hand.’”
The New York Jazz Experience has gained national and international recognition. In 2001, Stockton and Bill Melin, professor of music, traveled to the University of Limerick in Ireland to present “The New York Jazz Experience: A Model for Experiential Learning” at the International Conference of the College Music Society. The New York Times also featured the class in 1997.
A member of the faculty since 1977, Stockton teaches world music courses, jazz, and a number of other offerings, many of which he developed. He has directed World Music Ensembles and is former director of Lafayette’s Marching Band (1977-1989), Concert Band (1977-1988), and Jazz Ensemble (1977-1991).
He has given presentations at international conferences and seminars in Ghana, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. He moderated a panel discussion on “Charlie Parker: A Legacy in Jazz” with jazz giant Phil Woods and Frank Morgan. Since 1979, Stockton has served as adjudicator for high school music festivals in 37 states, Canada, Mexico, and Europe.