Press

The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/08/DDG5LNVT2S1.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, February 8, 2007 (SF Chronicle) BLACK HISTORY MONTH/For this jazz trumpeter, teaching is his pride and joy Daniel King, Chronicle Staff Writer Almost nothing pleases Khalil Shaheed more than playing trumpet, from the eruptive, ceiling-high sounds of bebop to the quietly emerging stories that arise during ballads. But nothing challenges and rewards him more than teaching Bay Area students to project their own voices on an instrument. The Oakland jazz trumpeter, 58, has been teaching and performing here for 27 years, ever since moving from Chicago. He is one of the Bay Area's steadiest jazz educators, having founded Oaktown Jazz Workshop 13 years ago as an after-school spot for students ages 10 to 18. He got his start in Buddy Miles' band and was handpicked, at age 19, by Jimi Hendrix for New York recording sessions. But Shaheed's teaching gigs energize him just as much: He also leads a music camp each year at Allen Temple Baptist Church and directs the Portfest music festival. As part of his outreach efforts, he runs several jazz-in-the-schools programs, including ones with the San Jose Jazz Society and the San Francisco Symphony. As an improviser, Shaheed has a clarity and brightness that light up a room: Whether playing Hank Mobley tunes or Moroccan music, he is less concerned with speed, rhythmic flare and note combinations than with tone quality. He uses the body and shape of his notes to tell his story. Q: What are your basic goals for students in your workshop? A: The goal of what we do at Oaktown is, first, to expose them to jazz music, because jazz is basically the only true art form that was born and raised in this country. Everything else was kind of developed somewhere else and brought here, but this belongs to us. And it's important to me that kids in America -- especially kids of African descent -- get some ownership. It's basically African music that was influenced by a lot of other cultures in New Orleans and grew out of that. Q: What do you tell students who say that while jazz was born here, hip-hop is also detectably American in its origins, so jazz isn't the only American art in that sense? A: The whole thing with that is, hip-hop comes from jazz. If you want to get down to the bare bottom of it, before there were drum machines, the hip-hop beats were played on drums, and the drum set as we know it was invented to play jazz. So there couldn't be a hip-hop without jazz, and we been rapping for years. If you go back to Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong -- that was the beginning of rap right there. Even before James Brown. Q: What are your thoughts on the concept of Black History Month as it relates to jazz education? A: Every month is Black History Month. I'm very grateful for the fact that we have a Black History Month, even though it is the shortest month of the year. But I think there needs to be a lot of work, because the ownership of this music has been pushed into a gray area, like it wasn't black people's music. And that bothers me, because there are musicians who went through a whole bunch of stuff to make it possible for everybody to own this music. You can't take away the fact that Billie Holiday and Lester Young had to go into the back door of a hotel where they were playing. Those things can't be denied and they can't be written out of the history, and the majority of them died broke. And when they're broke, their records get popular and it's white people buying their records, and all of a sudden the record company makes a bunch of money. My goal is to make sure the history is represented right. Q: One of your projects is Jazz Encounters, the outreach series at Yoshi's. What led you to create it? A: We might bring 40 kids down, and Branford Marsalis will do a workshop with them. So will a whole bunch of people: Joe Zawinul, Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton, Ellis Marsalis. They just donate their time, and Yoshi's donates the place and sends in a soundman so we can do it right. Growing up, I didn't have a Jazzschool. I didn't have a Stanford Jazz Workshop. I didn't have any of those things. What I had was some cats in Chicago who didn't mind me hanging out and bugging them. I was following around Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Richard Abrams, all those guys. They were my rock stars. Cats will take the time, and they all told me, "Look, I'm gonna help you, but here's your job: You gotta keep it going. You gotta turn other people on." That was the whole reason I started Oaktown in the first place. So I invite kids to gigs, too. I tell them, "Bring your horn and play a couple tunes with me." They learn more on the gig than they can learn in any workshop. Q: How would you describe the sound and spirit of your own music? A: Depends which band it is! But each time, I'm really concerned about tone, as opposed to how many notes I can play. One of the things I hope I can convey is beautiful tone quality, but also knowing what not to play. It's just like a conversation: If I play a line, I want to see what the rhythm section's reaction is to that line. I always remember this thing Dizzy Gillespie said: He said it took him 30 years to figure out what not to play. Even if I'm playing fast bebop, I like to leave breathing room. I like to hear what other musicians have to say back. The Khalil Shaheed Octet: Black History Month celebration with John Handy, Faye Carol, Ledisi and Kenny Washington. 7:30 p.m. Friday. Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland. Tickets: $5-$15. Call (510) 544-8924. To find out more about Shaheed and his projects, go to: http://www.oaktown-jazz.org E-mail Daniel King at dking@sfchronicle.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle