Performers Remix University of Akron Jazz Program

From Blu Jazz in Akron to the Kennedy Center in  Washington, D.C., Theron Brown and Chris Coles have been wowing audiences with piano and saxophone performances, respectively. Now, they’re bringing that experience and expertise to The University of Akron’s School of Music. Since August 2022, they’ve teamed up to head the jazz studies program as full-time professors.

Teaching music courses as well as leading efforts such as the university’s Jazz Fest, the program’s co-directors have been reaching out to both students and the Akron community.

Connecting with other musicians, artists and community members is the backbone of the program, and they plan to carry that through as it expands to more students.

“Working with each other to create synergy and collaboration,” Coles says, “that’s the hallmark of the way we want to teach.”

OCTAVE JUMP

A revamp of the jazz studies program was much needed.

The director of the program retiring and the impact of the pandemic led to a major decline in the number of students involved.

“We’ve already been able to build it up,” Brown says, adding that although there aren’t any jazz studies majors yet, they’ve recruited music education majors and students in various other majors to take classes and join the Jazz Ensemble Coles directs.

There are now 25 students in the Jazz Ensemble, which is much more than a typical ensemble of 15. The ensemble performs in both on- and off-campus concerts.

“The students here are absolutely amazing,” Coles says. “They have really rallied around this ensemble.”

They plan to limit the membership of the ensemble in future semesters, creating additional ensembles and a small group with various focuses so more students can participate.

Right now, Brown teaches Jazz Ensemble and Techniques and a Bach to Rock music appreciation class, while Coles teaches Intro to Music Theory. The two plan to add a bass drum professor and a guitar professor to the faculty, and they also hope to add a course that focuses on the history of jazz and specifically jazz in Akron, including some of the notable players and musical pieces that have come from the city.

Both acclaimed musicians and composers, Coles and Brown have invaluable experience as professional musicians based in Northeast Ohio. Brown, a University of Akron alumnus with a bachelor’s degree in jazz studies and a master’s degree in piano performance, performs regularly, runs the artist residency program for the I Promise School through Curated Storefront and is the founder of the Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival, for which he won a Knight Arts Challenge grant. Coles, who graduated from Youngstown State University and The University of Akron with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in saxophone performance, also performs regularly and won a Knight Arts Challenge grant in 2017 for his “Nine Lives” project, an interdisciplinary piece honoring the lives lost in the 2015 church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.

They’ve both also been educators around Northeast Ohio, including both previously at Kent State University and various camps and private schools in the area, and they’ve both taught master classes as well. Coles was previously a part-time professor at The University of Akron.

Their connections have doubled as a form of recruitment.

“We have relationships with a lot of people, and that has drawn students to us,” Brown says, adding that they have also done recruitment visits at local schools such as Firestone Community Learning Center and are working on obtaining funds to dedicate to scholarships. “Those that are either going through hardships or they’re super talented, we’ll make sure they have some money.”

SAME KEY

Through the curriculum and extracurricular activities, Coles and Brown hope to foster collaboration within the artistic community, both within the university, such as with the Wind Symphony and dance program, and also within the community, with venues for off-campus performances.

“Me and Chris have always played out … and we did that while we were in school too,” Brown says. “It helps transferring from being a student to the real world. You already have your feet. You’re able to start working right away.”

This inspired the off-campus performances during the university’s Jazz Fest in April.

Sean Jones, a Warren native, trumpet player and chair in jazz studies at Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute, has been a mentor to many young musicians, Coles says, and he taught the Jazz Ensemble leading up to a performance at Blu Jazz where the ensemble and jazz studies faculty performed together. The piece Jones taught was composed by Columbus native and award-winning trombone player Sam Blakeslee. There was also a Culmination Concert featuring both the Jazz Ensemble and Wind Symphony playing that same piece Blakeslee composed.

These connections present students with opportunities to book gigs at the club they played at or to get hired by someone who saw them playing out in the community.

“We’re bringing that to the table because we’re in this and doing it ourselves professionally, not just in Ohio, all over the country,” Brown says. “If I have accessibility to certain things, I need to use those to help everybody.”

Community members and students alike also got to take in a faculty performance featuring Brown, Coles, Jones and Blakeslee at Edgar’s Restaurant in West Akron, which served as a way to bring jazz to a part of the city where performances aren’t usually held.

“We figured it’d be an opportunity to go to that side of town. Jazz is not really played over there,” Coles says, referencing the history of the jazz mecca on Howard Street in Akron in the ’30s through the ’50s, something that he hopes to teach more students about.

Brown adds that he feels passionate about continuing the legacy of jazz in Akron.

“We’re answering the call,” he says. “We’re trying to really celebrate the connection that UAkron has in the grander story of jazz and Akron.”