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stuDent music guiDe // WheRe to stuDy jazz 2011 aRtist RounDtaBle
Don Braden
DJ trentino
Experiments & Experience
Coming to Terms With Jazz Artistry in the New Millennium
By Frank Alkyer
With jazz comes experimentation. That
seems to hold true whether musicians
are playing music, or just talking
about it. On a fine spring day in St. Louis,
four artists sat down to discuss what jazz can be
in the 21st century. This experiment took place
during the first-ever Jazz Education Network
conference on the campus of the University of
Missouri–St. Louis. Speaking to an audience of
jazz educators, the artists represented dramatically
diverse worldviews that reflected everything
from their respective ages and the music
they play to their artistic thought-processes.
Saxophonist Don Braden, 46, described how
he attempts to bring his broad view of the history
of jazz to life through his playing. Vibraphonist
Stefon Harris, 36, felt he can only be honest by
dealing with music he’s lived through, enjoying
the masters, but not emulating them. Pianist Gerald
Clayton, 26, looks at music today as a blank
slate where genres matter less and less to audi-
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ences. And DJ Trentino, a 24-year-old DJ and
remix artist, grew up on hip-hop but became a
jazz-trained drummer in school. Both Braden and
Harris teach extensively, while Clayton and Trentino
are products of the music education system.
DownBeat Publisher Frank Alkyer served as the
panel moderator for this free-wheeling, intense
and entertaining conversation.
Frank alkyer: I’ve contended that most people of
my age group [50], a little older and certainly
younger, find the back door into jazz. A pop musician
who they like mentions a jazz musician,
they seek out that musician, fall in love with his
music and the journey begins. That said, what
were your first musical references?
Don Braden: I wanted to be Michael Jackson.
[laughs] I’m not kidding. I certainly fell in love
with that music. I wanted to be in that music.
And then I got into Isaac Hayes. I was into James
Brown. I was into Earth, Wind and Fire like
gerald Clayton
Stefon harris
crazy. And then I got into Grover Washington Jr.,
the Crusaders, this kind of stuff. I thought I was a
jazz guy playing solos over C minor and expressing
myself at 14.
But my band director told me to go study. So,
I hooked up with Jamey Aebersold. I grew up in
Kentucky, and he was just across the river [in Indiana].
Jamey Aebersold put my feet on the path
to straightahead jazz. I got into [John] Coltrane
and Joe Henderson and all the rest. But my early
influences were just like you said.
Dj trentino: My experience definitely started
with hip-hop. Jazz was always there from school
because I was in band and everything. And I
continued that in college. In college, though, I
got more into pop and r&b and neo-soul and that
kind of stuff.
stefon harris: For me, it’s not about jazz, ultimately.
I’ve just always loved music. In terms of
my early influences, they were whatever I was
exposed to. Stevie Wonder is my hero. I think
Jack vartooGian/frontroWPhotos
Mark sheldon