For Ray Scro, music education is a redundancy. He's
been performing, studying and teaching music for nearly fifty years in his home
of Staten Island, and throughout New York City. In the early seventies Scro
studied under saxophonist and guru Lee Konitz, and he's played with Jimmy Knepper, Chuck Wayne, Charlie Persip, and Chico Hamilton, among others. In addition to his
own groups, he works regularly alongside bass legend and jazz scribeBill Crow. For fifteen years,Scro has also
served as Band Director at Curtis High School in Staten Island, and was head of
the Performing Arts department for six.
While arts education is often
discussed as a socially relevant abstraction, Scro is on the ground ensuring
that the next generation of jazz musicians understands where the music came
from as well as why it needs to keep going.
All About Jazz: Most
seven year olds are reaching for a baseball mitt or toy gun. What made you grab
a clarinet?
Ray Scro: I
started music lessons at seven because my parents made it part of my life, as
well as baseball and toy guns. My brother and I were simply expected to play an
instrument.
AAJ: How
did you first get introduced to jazz?
RS: The
first jazz musician I remember hearing was Stan Getz (introduced
to me by an older cousin, a beatnik wannabe). As a teenager I played in the
horn section of a rock band and the pianist hipped me to Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Lee Konitz brought me to
understand and love Louis Armstrong, Lester Young and Charlie Parker, and I can't get enough Duke Ellington, Count Basie or Sidney Bechet.
AAJ: Konitz
is respected as a mentor as well as a musician. Has his pedagogy influenced
your approach to teaching?
RS: My
teaching method and philosophy are profoundly influenced by Lee. The importance
of a historical understanding of the music is something he stresses: you don't
have to play like Louis Armstrong but you better know his music.
AAJ: Have
you been able to adapt Konitz's method for teaching a single, advanced player
to a group of teenaged students?
RS: Part
of Lee's method is learning how to apply the theoretical knowledge of harmony
to the actual practice of improvising by limiting the available note choices
and rhythmic values. For example, improvising a solo using only whole notes
selected from chord tones. This gets the student to internalize the sound of
the harmonies. Very simply, the student learns what notes sound
"right." We do this in class as a group: the rhythm section will play
through the tune while the sax section plays whole notes, or half notes or some
simple rhythmic riff. We'll use these riffs as background parts in a kind of
'head arrangement' of the song.
AAJ: How
do students respond to Konitz's method?
RS: The
students respond favorably! They gain confidence in their ability to create
using the given theory. We'll move from this to individuals soloing over these
riffs.
AAJ: Does
your own career as a musician influence your teaching?
RS: I
constantly relate my playing experience to my students in class, for example
[explaining that] "when I'm playing second tenor in a big band my job is
to copy the phrasing of the lead alto" or "when I'm soloing I'm
trying to listen to and feed off the pianist." I regularly bring in bands
of my own to perform for the students, and many students attend my
performances.
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