Volume 5 (2013)

Articles in this volume of Current Research in Jazz present new research and insights on jazz history and pedagogy.

Artie Shaw in New Zealand

Aleisha Ward

This article aims to illuminate a small portion of Artie Shaw’s 1943 tour, chronicling the month he spent entertaining military personnel and civilians in New Zealand, and revealing aspects of the impact that the Shaw band had on the local jazz scene.

Dennis Sandole’s Unique Jazz Pedagogy

Thomas Scott McGill

Philadelphia-based teacher, theorist, performer, and composer Dennis Sandole is perhaps best known for having been John Coltrane’s theory and improvisation teacher and mentor. A guitar virtuoso, Sandole also developed a conceptually advanced and technically demanding teaching literature that was strongly influenced by twentieth century classical compositional practice. This article examines Sandole’s teaching approach, which applied a range of highly sophisticated melodic and harmonic techniques to the jazz idiom, including exotic scales, chord progressions, and substitutions based on interval cycles, polytonality, and synthetic multi-octave scales. It also considers the influence that his teachings exerted on John Coltrane’s musical output.

For further information, please contact: