Giving Compass' Take:

• Adam Gustafson at The Conversation discusses the history of jazz in America and how jazz’s identity as an academic art form in classrooms may have killed it's core nature. 

• How can educators and administrators incorporate music to allow all students to communicate and be engaged while also preserving historical culture?

• Here's an article on Charlie Parker and the meaning of freedom through jazz. 

Jazz seems to be experiencing a bit of a renaissance among movie directors – look no further than documentaries such as “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool,” which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, biopics such as “Born to Be Blue,” and recent Oscar winners like “Whiplash.”

While films about jazz are everywhere, evidence suggests that fewer people are actually consuming the music, putting the genre more on par with classical music than with today’s pop artists.

There are a host of reasons for the decline of jazz as a popular music, but the one that interests me as a music historian is the role that academics played.

In our attempt to elevate jazz to the ivory tower, we may have inadvertently helped to kill it as a popular style.

Read the full article about academia killing jazz by Adam Gustafson at The Conversation