LENOX The Lenox School of Jazz operated for only four summers, from 1957 to 1960, but in a talk about the facility yesterday afternoon, author Jeremy Yudkin asserted that, besides being a key part of Lenox's history, the school was a key part of American history. Yudkin, a professor of musicology at Boston University, was speaking in support of his recently published book "The Lenox School of Jazz," which recounted those four summers as well as the events that led to the school's foundation and its ultimate closing in 1960. Besides Yudkin's talk, the 60 or so attendees at Lenox Library also got a sneak peek at an upcoming documentary movie about the Music Inn, which housed the jazz school.
Jazz drummer George Schuller, a co-producer of the film, is the son of composer/conductor Gunther Schuller, who taught at the School of Jazz. George Schuller explained that the documentary, which is still being developed, has been in the works for about 3 1/2 years. The part of the documentary shown last night, which Schuller conceded was still a "rough cut," featured interviews with, among others, Gunther
"I don't know if we can get everything in in 90 minutes," he admitted. Yudkin explained that the School of Jazz was the brainchild of Music Inn owners Stephanie Barber and her first husband, Phillip. The couple had matriculated to New York in 1949 with the intent of founding a world-class jazz resort they would call the Music Inn.
The Music Inn, which was a jazz resort until 1960, soon became known for a series of summer round-table discussions featuring the legends of jazz, Yudkin said. Eventually, the Barbers, Newport Jazz festival founder Marshall Stearns and Lewis came up with the idea for a school that would feature jazz performers as teachers, helping up-and-coming jazz enthusiasts. The faculty grew to include Lewis, one of the great keyboard players of his era, as well as jazz legends Max Roach, Gillespie and Jimmy Guiffre.
Famed alumni included trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Ran Blake and saxophonist Ornette Coleman, Yudkin said. Eventually, about 150 jazz musicians attended the school, he added. Yudkin opined that one of the great features of the school, besides the amazing interaction between jazz legends and younger musicians, was the lack of racism.
Black teacher-performers taught white students, a situation not common in the 1950s, he said. Performers of both races also performed for largely white audiences, Yudkin noted. That, too, was not a regular happenstance.
The story of the Lenox School of Jazz is also the story of Stephanie Barber, who supported and nurtured the school until its demise in 1960 because of financial problems, Yudkin said. Barber, who died in 2003, was a popular figure in Lenox for many years and a tireless supporter of the arts.
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