Courtesy of YUJC

On Friday, the Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective sat down with the Black Art Jazz Collective for a joint event in celebration of Black History Month. 

The Black Art Jazz Collective was founded by renowned saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, who is a lecturer at the Yale School of Music and contributor to the Yale Jazz Initiative. The sextet is dedicated to preserving the historical significance of African American musicians in jazz. Friday’s event featured the premiere performance of a tune composed by Escoffery, followed by an interview that explored the creative, philosophical and artistic processes of the band. While the Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective (YUJC) filmed the conversation with the Black Art Jazz Collective (BAJC) earlier in the month, the video was released on Friday. 

“Jazz is a fundamentally Black art form,” said Akeel Vitarana ’24, a YUJC board member and one of the event’s organizers. “Black History Month is quite an important month for jazz, because it’s a very good place to start understanding the roots and history of jazz, and the significance of the Black American voice in jazz.”  

According to YUJC president Jarron Long ’23, the Collective is always looking for ways to reach out to the jazz community at Yale and New Haven. While the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways they perform this outreach, which traditionally consists of shows and in-person performances, YUJC has been focusing on other ways of getting people involved, such as through virtual content. 

Last fall, YUJC hosted a Latin jazz show to celebrate the contribution of Hispanic musicians for Hispanic Heritage Month. On the occasion of Black History Month, YUJC felt that it was paramount to recognize jazz’s place in wider discussions on social and racial relations instead of simply reminding people of the role Black musicians have in making jazz music. According to Long, this prompted YUJC to conduct the event in a dialogue format. 

This year, YUJC aims to contribute to conversations about the role of jazz in American culture, in particular looking at how different music groups shaped important parts of jazz history and made it what it is today. 

Long added that a significant portion of the interview was about the different range of perspectives that can exist among jazz composers. He emphasized that, even for musicians who are in the same collective, there is much diversity in terms of where they come from in thinking about music.

“I hope that what people get out of it is this dialogue — that Black culture and jazz music are always intertwined,” Long said. “I hope that people take away that this is an ongoing conversation and one that they can be a part of too, from whatever perspective they bring to the table.”

YUJC officially registered as a student organization at Yale in 2012.

GAMZE KAZAKOGLU
Gamze covers music news for the Arts desk and writes for the WKND. She is a sophomore in Pauli Murray majoring in psychology and humanities.