Jazz Education Abroad (JEA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to increase cultural, musical, and educational awareness through the teaching of American Jazz to youth from different backgrounds and regions of the world.
JEA hopes to increase the awareness of American Jazz music through cultural music education to youth worldwide, especially underserved youth in developing countries, refugees, and visually impaired youth.
“For underserved youth, refugees, and visually impaired students, JEA provides scholarships and reduced fees for its jazz workshops”
Created in 2012, JEA supports its mission by facilitating innovative performances, partnerships, collaborations, and educational programs that engage students of all socio-economic backgrounds, ages, ethnicity, nationalities, and religions worldwide.
JEA reaches live audiences numbering in the thousands, and up to 600 students at one time through intensive two- to eight-day jazz workshops and/or festivals. The JEA faculty represents the most outstanding university jazz programs, jazz organizations, professional jazz performing groups, and solo jazz artists/educators from the United States and other countries.
As every JEA Workshop is unique, we employ ideas and concepts as the new generation of students are faster, they’re smarter, and they need to be engaged from the onset! Our programs are designed to do just that. After determining the individual’s level of expertise and knowledge of jazz, we place them with other individuals of the same level, so they will learn a great deal information in a short amount of time.
This is done in both jazz combos and jazz big bands. In master classes, we have the same flexibility so that participants learn the basic fundamentals of playing by playing, so they are engaged immediately. They are shown how to practice, how to record themselves, how to use the current technology on their iPhone to help them learn faster and more in depth. And learning the foundations makes it much easier to be better jazz and, a classical musician. Teaching jazz music in the 21st Century is the perfect answer for engaging the student for a lifetime of joy.
Our JEA faculty are selected not only for their performing abilities, but for their abilities to be innovative in the learning process and in the classroom. This means the minute the participants walk into the classroom, innovation begins. How is the room set up, what are we going to do the minute they walk in the door until the time they leave at the end of the class? We’ll have the students play, we’ll have the teacher play, we’ll listening to recordings, we’ll analyze how the performer is performing, and we’ll explore why the artist is playing what they are playing.
We’ll have the students participate in ear training by playing a phrase and seeing if the student can play it back, play rhythms and see if they can clap the rhythms, etc. We’re going to transport the students, by pure art, to provide them with a unique experience. In addition, the faculty concerts at the end of each day, featuring a world-class jazz artist, will provide the energy and the desire to learn more.
JEA Clinicians are selected because of the quality of their teaching and performing. They are also quality people!
JEA and its partners also provide music instrument donations to help create the next generation of jazz musicians
