Jazz Academy students with drumsticks in a CJP classroom

Chicago Jazz Philharmonic

A mentor for every Jazz Academy student, six days a week.

Seven ideas, five minutes. Every one of them is buildable this year.

From Greg Spero, Chicago jazz pianist, now building software in Los Angeles.

01The week

One day a week becomes seven.

Six more days of feedback a week, and nobody on staff works an extra hour.

MonTueWedThuFriSatSun

Today. One Saturday with a teaching artist.

MonTueWedThuFriSatSun

With a practice mentor. Seven days.

A Jazz Academy student sees a teaching artist on Saturday, then practices alone for six days.

The mentor is there the other six.

02The mentor

Every student gets an answer the day they practice.

Pitch and rhythm feedback on every practice session, from about $14 a student a year.

Pitch and rhythm listening is already licensable at that price (MakeMusic Cloud).

The improvising coach is the part that gets built.

Text first. Voice only if CJP wants it.

9:41
‹ Today’s practice M
Assigned Saturday Body and Soul, the bridge Bars 17 to 24. Slow, 80 bpm. Four days this week.
HOLD
0:42
Bars 17 to 20PitchRhythm

The F# is 20 cents flat. Rhythm is locked. Try it again at 80 bpm.

How do I start improvising over these changes?

Ask Orbert

Listen up first. Play the bridge three times without the horn, until you can sing it. Then make the connection, the one phrase you already hear. Then act it out, and let the rest come from there.

PracticeAskProgress

Example screen

03The archive

Five hundred shows become a teacher you can search.

Five hundred nights of you talking about this music, in one search box. About $540 to transcribe.

Example

how do you approach the bridge on Body and Soul
The Real Deal, on the bridge and the balladMarch 15, 2019 2:58:40
Jazz Academy masterclass, ballad phrasingFebruary 8, 2020 0:23:51

The Real Deal archive, residency masterclasses, and Saturday rehearsals, transcribed and indexed.

About $540 to transcribe 500 three-hour shows, at $0.006 a minute.

Only if WDCB agrees the archive can be used.

04The catalog

Twenty courses from one Saturday a week.

Nineteen more $55 courses, cut from Saturdays you already teach.

A masterclass recorded once on Saturday becomes a course in days, with AI-assisted editing.

The material already exists in every Saturday masterclass.

Jazz Academy Saturday cohort Sat, Oct 10
This weekLast weekTerm
19Practiced, of 24
2Stuck
2Ready to move up
Parent digest, needs your approval

Marcus practiced 4 days, 52 minutes. Working on: F# in the upper register.

Approve and sendEdit

Example screen

05The Saturday

Saturday starts with the week already read.

Every teaching artist walks in knowing who practiced, who is stuck, and who is ready.

No one spends the first twenty minutes finding out.

Parents get a weekly note that CJP approves before it sends.

06The evidence

Districts buy what they can measure.

A year of home-practice numbers, in the form a district asks for before it signs.

What CJP can show today

58%more comfortable leading a group
88%more confident improvising

Jazz Academy student survey, published by CJP

JazzALIVE is already inside Chicago Public Schools, and DMDL has been in Chicago classrooms since 2001.

The Jazz Academy survey numbers are the starting line. A year of home-practice data is what a district asks for next.

07Sequence

The first year needs no software.

Consent at registration and a phone on a tripod this year. I build the mentor next year.

This school year

  • Parents say yes to the app when they register for the Academy.
  • CJP University gets its own web address.
  • A phone on a tripod every Saturday.

Next year

  • Every Saturday student gets the practice mentor. That is the pilot year.
  • Pitch and rhythm checking, plus the improvising coach.
  • A full year of practice data to show districts.

After

  • Twenty courses on CJP University.
  • Propel and JazzALIVE offered to new districts.
  • Third Stream residencies with a remote half.

Decisions that stay with CJP: kids’ data and consent, archive rights, whether any voice is ever used, and production capacity.

Six days a week, starting with one Saturday cohort.

Happy to talk it through.

Text meEmail me

Greg Spero, pianist, Chicago.