Volume 6 (2014)

The articles in this volume of Current Research in Jazz examine the family history of a major jazz figure, augmenting and correcting previously published accounts and shed light on a little-known experiment in the world of academia that brought together the community and its artists in a classroom setting.

Stan Getz’s East End Roots

Peter Gardner

Published biographies of Stan Getz have presented inaccurate accounts of his family history and his ancestors’ immigration from Russia to England to America, apparently relying on recollections and anecdotes. This article gives a revised version that is based on research of archived public records.

Black Experience in the Fine Arts: An African American Community Arts Movement in a University Setting

Steven L. Isoardi and Michael Dett Wilcots

This article discusses the introduction of elements of black community arts into a classroom setting at the University of California, Riverside in 1972. Led by Horace Tapscott and including members of the Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA) organization, these classes put students in contact with active musicians, poets, and artists and also presented studies of music history and broader topics as interpreted by Tapscott. The class sessions were documented by Michael Dett Wilcots through tape recordings and photographs, and have been preserved in the Horace Tapscott Jazz Collection at UCLA.

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