Jazz Education Today: A National Snapshot
Research Survey

Jazz Education Today: A National Snapshot

A national research survey about what jazz education in the United States is teaching well, what may be missing, and how musicians and educators understand the relationship among curriculum, sound, history, community, professional practice, and inclusion.

Approx. 12–15 minutes Adults 18+ United States Anonymous or identified by participant choice
Survey design. Where response choices are substantively equivalent, they are presented alphabetically to reduce inadvertent prioritization or ordering effects. Ordinal scales remain in their logical order.
Privacy. You may choose whether we may identify you by name when discussing or quoting your survey response. If you do not give permission, your name and email address will not be included with your survey response. If you give permission, you may provide your name and email address with the survey. Interest in a follow-up Zoom interview is collected separately, so a participant may volunteer for an interview and still keep the survey response anonymous. Identifying details will be anonymized in published analysis, presentations, and publications.
Section 1

Your relationship to jazz and jazz education

1. Which of the following describe your relationship to jazz? Select all that apply.
2. Approximately how many years have you been involved professionally or educationally with jazz?

Response choices are ordered by years of experience rather than alphabetically.

3. Which forms of jazz learning have been important to your own development? Select all that apply.
Section 2

Overall assessment

4. Overall, how effectively does jazz education in the United States prepare students to understand and participate in jazz?

If willing or applicable, please tell us more about any lower rating, uncertainty, or qualification in your response.

5. What do you think formal jazz education currently does particularly well?
6. What do you think formal jazz education could do better?
Section 3

Textbooks, materials, and curricular sources

7. What jazz textbooks, histories, method books, anthologies, or major curricular resources do you currently use, or remember learning from?

Please include author and title where possible. You may also name books or resources you no longer use.

8. Are there textbooks or curricular resources you have stopped using? If so, which ones, and why?
9. What do you use alongside, or instead of, conventional textbooks? Select all that apply.
10. What do you find missing, distorted, outdated, or difficult to teach using currently available jazz textbooks and curricular materials?
Section 4

What should jazz students learn?

11. How important are the following to the education of a jazz musician?
Area Essential Very important Somewhat Slightly Not important Unsure

If you selected a lower rating, “Unsure,” or would otherwise like to qualify any of your responses above, please tell us more.

12. Which THREE areas do you believe are most neglected in contemporary jazz education?

Select up to three.

13. What important area of jazz knowledge or practice is missing from the list above?
Section 5

Learning the music

14. Thinking about your own development, where did you learn the things that have proved most important to you as a musician, educator, or scholar?
15. How effectively does formal jazz education teach students to learn through listening and embodied musical participation?

If willing, please tell us what you believe is missing, difficult to assess, or could be improved.

16. What, if anything, can students learn on bandstands, in rehearsals, jam sessions, communities, churches, clubs, or professional situations that is difficult to teach in school?
17. How effectively does formal jazz education connect students with mentorship, apprenticeship, jam sessions, community participation, and professional performance?

If willing, please tell us what you believe is missing, difficult to assess, or could be improved.

18. How, if at all, did your jazz education address the Great Migration as a force shaping regional jazz cultures in the United States? Select all that apply.

If willing or applicable, how were migration and regional musical development connected in what you learned?

19. How much did your jazz education address meaningful regional differences in jazz beyond the places and traditions most commonly emphasized in survey courses, such as New Orleans, Kansas City, New York, Los Angeles, and Swing Era big-band traditions?

If willing or applicable, what regional jazz cultures, scenes, or stylistic differences did you learn about, and what distinguished them musically or socially?

Section 6

Theory, improvisation, and creative practice

20. Which statement comes closest to your view of theory in jazz education?

If willing or applicable, please tell us more about your response, especially if none of the choices fully captures your view.

21. How well do contemporary jazz programs balance established vocabulary and repertoire with experimentation, risk, stylistic exploration, and the development of an individual musical voice?

If willing, please tell us what you believe is missing, difficult to assess, or could be improved.

Section 7

History, culture, canon, and inclusion

22. How effectively does jazz education connect musical sound and practice to Black and African American history and culture, Indigenous histories and communities, Latinx histories and communities, Asian American histories and communities, other racialized and diasporic histories, institutions, economies, communities, and social life?

If willing, please tell us what you believe is missing, difficult to assess, or could be improved.

23. In your experience, how adequately are the following represented within jazz curricula?
Area Very well represented Adequately represented Somewhat underrepresented Severely underrepresented Unsure

If you selected “Somewhat underrepresented,” “Severely underrepresented,” “Unsure,” or would otherwise like to qualify any response above, please tell us more.

24. Do you think the standard jazz canon used in educational programs adequately represents the breadth of jazz history and practice?

If willing or applicable, please tell us more about any concerns, uncertainty, or qualifications in your response.

25. Which musicians, traditions, communities, racial or ethnic histories, historical developments, or musical practices should students encounter more often?
26. How are diversity and inclusion handled in the jazz curriculum you teach, studied within, or know most closely? Select all that apply.

If you selected “Rarely addressed,” “Not addressed,” “Unsure,” or would otherwise like to qualify your response, please tell us more if willing.

27. How do you navigate diversity and inclusion when selecting repertoire, readings, artists, ensembles, historical narratives, and Black, African American, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, diasporic, or other social and cultural contexts?
28. In recent years, have institutional changes, public debates, or changing policies around diversity, equity, and inclusion affected how jazz is taught where you work or study?

If yes, please describe the practical effect without naming individuals or institutions.

If willing or applicable, please tell us more. Please avoid naming individuals or institutions.

29. What does an inclusive jazz curriculum look or sound like to you in practice? How should Black and African American, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, diasporic, and other histories and social contexts be incorporated? What tensions, limitations, or unintended forms of tokenism should educators be attentive to?
Section 8

Institution, community, and professional life

30. Please indicate your level of agreement.
Statement Strongly agree Agree Neither Disagree Strongly disagree Unsure

If you selected “Disagree,” “Strongly disagree,” “Unsure,” or would otherwise like to qualify any response above, please tell us more.

31. If you attended a formal jazz program, how well did it prepare you for the practical business and operational realities of sustaining a professional musical career?

If willing or applicable, please tell us more about any lower rating, uncertainty, or circumstances that make the question difficult to assess.

32. How much attention should jazz programs give to the following areas of professional infrastructure and working life?

Substantive areas are listed alphabetically within each category. Response scales remain in conceptual order.

Business, Legal & Financial Infrastructure

Area Essential Very important Somewhat Slightly Not important Unsure

Gig Mechanics & Bandstand Etiquette

Area Essential Very important Somewhat Slightly Not important Unsure

Marketing, Media & Self-Promotion

Area Essential Very important Somewhat Slightly Not important Unsure

If you selected a lower rating, “Unsure,” or would otherwise like to qualify any of your responses above, please tell us more.

33. Where did you actually learn most of these professional skills? Select all that apply.
34. What professional knowledge did you have to learn after leaving school that you wish had been part of your jazz education?
Section 9

Looking forward

35. Imagine you could redesign jazz education without having to preserve existing departmental structures or curricular requirements. What would you keep?
36. What would you change?
37. What would you add that is largely absent now?
38. What is the single most important thing jazz educators should be thinking about right now?
39. Is there anything about jazz education that we have not asked that researchers and educators need to hear?
Permission to use your name

May we identify you by name when discussing or quoting your survey response?

Your choice will not affect your ability to participate. If you select No, your survey response will remain anonymous.

40. Please choose one.