Virginia Commonwealth University faculty join the combined VCU and University of KwaZulu-Natal jazz teams on the VCU stage, October 2013. (photo credit Jean-Philippe Cyprés)

Chapter 1: A Context for Action

What are the objectives in a Jazz Improvisation course, and how can they be graded? Is it appropriate to evaluate students’ creativity, their expressiveness in soloing? Is that defendable against potential student appeals? Or is it better to restrict the grading to students’ more technical skills, their ability to re-create the required chord/scale relationships? Does that de-emphasize the importance of creativity in the students’ work and in their solos? Do students often focus most on what will get them the best grade? Should the grading process be concrete or abstract? What is the philosophy of an educator who includes grading the creative expressiveness of the student—and of the educator who does not?

If grading music in general in any creative, credit-bearing course is any challenge at all, how much more daunting is it to grade something as personal, even as amorphous, as jazz improvisation? The instructors whose responses are listed within this book represent over 700 years of combined experience and service teaching Jazz Improvisation—over 400 of those years for credit. By sharing their own approaches to grading this subject, these educators now teach those in need of a range of models as well as continue to learn from other educators as to the possibilities.