BLACK PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A STUDY BASED ON INDEPTH INTERVIEWS (JAZZ, CLASSICAL)

• Main Author: HARDIN, CHRISTOPHER L
• Language: ENG
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 1987
• Subjects: Higher education
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8710458

This study explores the experience of black professional musicians in higher education through in-depth interviews. It was expected that the interviews would reveal important differences in the experience of black musicians from other artists in academia. Fourteen participants in the Northeastern United States were interviewed about their double careers as professional musicians and faculty members using the methodology of the in-depth phenomenological interview. Those interviewed were: Bill Barron, Marion Brown, Jaki Byard, Stanley Cowell, Clyde Criner, Bill Dixon, Natalie Hinderas, Bill Pierce, Hildred Roach, Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Hale Smith, Frederick Tillis, and Pearl Williams-Jones. Each interview had three parts, (a) the participant's life before he/she started teaching, (b) the participant's life since he/she has been teaching, and (c) what meaning the participant made of the experiences reconstructed and shared in parts a and b. The interviews averaged four hours, were recorded on audio-tape and transcribed to print for analysis and discussion. The material from the interviews is first presented as a series of individual profiles in the artists' own words and, second, as excerpts from the interviews which are included in a discussion of themes derived from the content of the interviews. The findings include: (1) many black musicians were recruited during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and similar positions are no longer available, (2) some musicians are unwilling to curtail their composing, performing, and recording, which is the source of their artistic recognition, in order to teach full-time, (3) many musicians feel that their value to academia has not been recognized, that they are an underused resource, (4) those artists planning to continue teaching were those who accept the full-time demands of the teaching position, although they still see themselves as performers first, (5) most of the participants feel the potential of black music and of black studies in higher education are still unrealized, and (6) the methodology of in-depth interviewing was well suited to the nature of the study.