The International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ) was founded in 1989 by David Liebman, who now serves as Artistic Director. As a performing and recording artist, he had traveled extensively and conducted masterclasses at jazz schools all over the world. Because of this, David Liebman had an accurate picture of what was happening in jazz education. In 1987 he wrote a letter to those individuals from schools where he had sensed positive energy. This letter would lead to the foundation of the IASJ:

"...It is becoming increasingly clear that jazz has finally attained the status of a bona fide art form with a well established legacy. Of course, there is still far to go in matters like funding and so on, but in general the situation has vastly improved over the past decade. Accompanying this positive development is the fact that there is a growing demand for education in the field. This is apparent from the proliferation of schools and associations all over the world featuring jazz education, as well as the large numbers of interested students. It is precisely because of this global growth that I feel it is time to form a network and put like minded people in touch with each other...

"Jazz has truly become universal. It has largely extended beyond its American roots to embrace all nationalities. More and more the majority of the students are from outside the USA...

"I am proposing that a network be set up whereby we could institute a wide variety of programs attempting to achieve the goal of cross-cultural communication between various centers of learning all over the world...

"...This could truly be a United Nations of Schools of Jazz..."

David Liebman proposed a meeting to discuss the possibility of forming such a network. When the meeting finally materialized in Germany, April 22, 1989, there were representatives from sixteen schools and thirteen countries present. With continuing communication over the next year, the first IASJ Jazz Meeting was held in June 1990 at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Holland. Since then there have been IASJ Annual Jazz Meetings in Dublin 1991, Siena 1992, Graz 1993, New York City 1994, Israel 1995, Baltic Cruise 1996, Siena 1997, Cologne 1998, Santiago De Compostela 1999. Future meetings are planned for Paris 2000, Berklee (Boston) 2001, Helsinki 2002, Kobe, Japan 2004.

The IASJ is now a worldwide non-profit organization with its main office in the Hague Netherlands, and is comprised of institutions engaged in the teaching of jazz on a regular basis. The primary goal is to enable students, teachers and administrators of these member schools to broaden their horizons through contact with colleagues from the international community. This is done through IASJ publications including the magazine - Jazz Changes, student and teacher exchanges on all levels, and the Annual Jazz Meetings. Being a member of the IASJ gives a school the opportunity to influence jazz education, and therefore the future of jazz.

As of 1999 we have member schools from the following countries: IASJ Members

The 1999 meeting was held in Santiago De Compestela,SPain and was hosted by Suso Atanes and Estudio,Escola de Musica.

With students, teachers and representatives from Europe, U.S.,Australia, South Africa, Bratislavia, Japan and Israel this Tenth Anniversary Meeting was a great success. The setting was magnificent as Santiago was celebrating the Holy Year, befitting its importance as a destination for pilgrims for the past millennium visiting the resting place of St.James. There was a wonderful performance by folk musicians from Galicia, as well as a group of young Flamenco musicians from Cadiz who spent the week with the students. Besides the fantastic final concerts by the students, there was a large event in the main square where the Flamenco group played with David Liebman, Ronan Guilfoyle and Michael Kuttner. 

Next year's meeting will be hosted by the Paris Conservatory in July, 2000 and some very special performances are planned.

Cathedral of St. James in Santiago - Site of the 10th IASJ meeting

David Liebman, Michael Kuttner (drums), Ronan Guilfoyle (bass) rehearsing with Flamenco musicians

"We have been to all ten IASJ meetings"
Left to Right: Suso Atanes, David Liebman, Walter Turkenburg, Graham Collier, Ulf Radelius

Cover of CD from Gala Concert held in Cologne, Germany for the 9th IASJ meeting. 

The following statement from the IASJ brochure represents the rationale for the founding of the organization written by David Liebman.

"...Jazz is acknowledged as a universal language with its roots in the Afro-European-American experience. The multi-cultural blending inherent in jazz inevitably leads to the inclusion of people from diverse locations and cultures.

As a human art form, jazz vividly demonstrates the all-important balance between individual freedom and group interaction. It exemplifies the act of understanding and accepting individual perspectives and preferences within the context of sharing with others.

For these reasons jazz is a perfect vehicle for cross cultural communication. It begins with communication on a musical level and evolves to interaction on a real, practical level: human understanding.

There is a great similarity between schools teaching an art form, regardless of location, because all schools cover the same material. Jazz students also have common characteristics, such as artistic ideals, a love of jazz, a similar age group and the common goal of playing the music well. Creating an IASJ Network where they can meet each other and interact in a positive artistic environment is a real service to the future.

The function of the IASJ is to provide an environment where these activities can take place..."

When we caught up with Dave Liebman, on the eve of his saxophone master class, held every August at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, he was basking in the afterglow of the annual meeting of the group he founded, the International Association of Schools of Jazz, the release of a new recording with the Dave Liebman group, A Brazilian tinged outing on Arkadia Jazz, New Vistas, and his latest performance of John Coltrane's "Meditations," at this year's North Sea Jazz Festival. (A recorded version of "Meditations" is available from Arkadia Jazz.)

Since the late '60s, the prolific Brooklyn-born saxman has been a one man jazz commando squad, with performances in every corner of the planet and over 75 recordings as a leader, as well as a major force in jazz education with clinics, master classes, books, videos and play-alongs.

Yet alongside his many magical musical moments with Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, Chick Corea and his own groups, he states that founding and serving as Artistic Director of the IASJ "is the greatest thing I've done in my life, in addition to my daughter, of course. With the IASJ, I see firsthand how young people communicate with each other with jazz as a vehicle and taking place on a very high level. Jazz is unique because of its looseness. You've got to be an individual but also part of a group. At our annual meeting, I take great satisfaction in seeing how they grow, how they interact. I feel like the father, the daddy, the cappo, with a lot of grandchildren running out in the world."

Headquartered in The Hague, in the Netherlands, Lieb founded the organization in 1989 to "bring students together using jazz as a medium for promoting positive cross cultural communications. Today we have individuals and schools from over 35 countries as part of the group."

At the yearly meetings, members come together for a week to play, exchange ideas, hang out and network. "We also have a newsletter," Lieb explains, "and a magazine, Jazz Changes, which purposely focuses on subjects that are controversial, like gays in jazz and the place of women within this music, etc.:

Lieb believes the proliferation of educational aids has contributed to the global flowering of jazz. "The foreign thing just grows and grows, "he believes. "It's an international music now, way beyond America, beyond its origins. And this will only continue as now it's slowly working its way into Asia and Africa, more so as their leisure time increases."

For Lieb, the biggest change in the learning process has been "that students are now given everything they need, from A to Z; all possible materials. At this year's IASJ conference in Siena, Italy one of the teachers had an AKAI machine called the Riff-o-matic, which allows you to slow down a tape but keep the same pitch, so you can more easily transcribe. When I was learning, it sometimes took days just to get a chorus down. The students today have a higher level of development than the previous generation because they absorb what's in the air. Younger musicians have more skills. The trade off is that individualism can be lost. It gets harder and harder to find true personalities because of mass teaching and the mass culture, which focuses on conformity rather than individuality."

Liebman Leads Cross-Pollination Jazz Project

When it comes to jazz, there's one thing Dave Liebman said he believes strongly: The future of this music rests with the educational community. Soprano saxophonist/educator Liebman is the founder and artistic director of the International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ), a loose organization of more than 40 universities, conservatories, and music schools from around the globe. Founded in 1989, the IASJ is scheduled to meet in New York this month, offering nearly 100 students, teachers and administrators an opportunity for international jazz cross pollination. "Jazz isJazz is a universal language," Liebman said "Whenever I toured Europe, I'd see the growth of private and public schools that are teaching jazz. But there seemed to be a problem, too. Jazz musicians and educators from one country weren't seeking out players from neighboring nations. There were, and still are, all these great ideas and players out there that weren't getting over to a larger audience." Liebman's solution was to write various educational leaders and urge a meeting to discuss a possible network. That first meeting has developed into an annual week-long pilgrimage. Students are placed in small groups given some music to rehears, and told they will perform a concert by the end of the session. Teachers help them organize in the beginning, then step back and let the students work. "We treat it like a professional gig," Liebman said. "They have to battle language barriers and, sometimes, skill-level differences to pull it together. It is amazing to see what they can do. When it's all over, every student gets a contact sheet of attendees. It's developed into a great network. We've had a number of musicians travel and play in other countries as a result of relationships that began here." Liebman's dream is to see one school from every nation in the world join IASJ, creating a true United Nations of jazz. "Can you imagine that?" he smiled. "I'd love to see 200 players from around the world playing 'C Jam Blues."

Frank Alkyer - Downbeat Magazine 1994

What you have in your hands captures the essence of what to my knowledge was an historic event. It is a recording of several of the performances from the International Association of Schools of Jazz' Baltic Cruise, which took place during June/July 1996. For ten days, one hundred students and teachers along with another hundred Danish jazz lovers cruised on the Baltic Sea aboard the Kristina Regina. We visited Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and of course Denmark.

The cruise ship served several purposes besides transportation, lodging and eating: classrooms, rehearsal studios, meeting rooms, practice rooms and jazz club. Indeed, the Kristina Regina was like a floating city for jazz musicians.

Our organization, the IASJ held its yearly Jazz Meeting on the ship, hosted by the Rhythmic Music Conservatory of Copenhagen led by the fantastic directory, Erik Moseholm. Nearly every evening we made visits to these Baltic countries and in each of the port cities performances by our students and teachers were given for the public as well as, in some cases, jam sessions with local musicians. During the day on the ship itself, rehearsals and classes took place and in the late evening jam sessions aboard.

The music on this CD represents several student groups as well as some of the teachers. It should be noted that these are musicians who only met a few days before the performances and were asked to put some music together before the performances. In some cases, because of language barriers, the participants may not have even communicated verbally. Remember that these are students and teachers from nearly 20 countries, including most of Europe, Brazil, Israel, USA and Japan. Although the recording quality is far from perfect, you should be able to sense the loose and funloving spirit which is happening. This is the goal of the IASJ - that is to promote positive cross-cultural communication using the universal language of jazz as the medium to accomplish the purpose.

“I have always wanted to come to something like this: a meeting of young minds from all around the world, to talk about jazz. Well, this meeting definitely satisfied my desire for such a thing. Now I know that jazz does live in young hearts and that no matter what happens, jazz lives on.”
Nicole Guiland - New School - USA

“The first days were hard. The standard is really very high and so the competition also. That was quite tough for me in the beginning but this really made me think about what I want to do and I had to really take a close and honest look at myself. Thanks to everyone who made this event happen!”
Kornelia Deppe - Hochschule Franz Liszt - Weimar,Germany

Comments from Matthieu Donarier of  Paris Conservatory regarding the August 1996 Baltic Cruise

At the beginning, after a 19 hour bus trip from France, it was clear to me that it was not only a jazz clinic, it was an adventure to an unknown part of the world. One hour later I was in the Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen, Denmark and there, what a shock! Musicians from all over the world. "Where do you come from? What instrument do you play?" During the first days on the ship there was a lot of excitement of course, but also a feeling that everyone was looking curious at each other. All waiting for the others to play. Just to check out the average level, because finally, one question remains during the first days: "Who am I compared with the others?"

Fortunately, the organizers of the cruise had done everything to make us feel OK. For example by placing one musician per country in creating the combos. Also one country per cabin (which is good anyway, to relax a few hours each day with good old French jokes). And it worked! After a short time, and a lot of rehearsals and jam sessions (after all, what do jazz musicians do when they meet - they jam - no other way - whether you talk together or not), contacts inevitably become deeper with some musicians. From this point, you enter into the second stage of the cruise: after the audition, you begin to exchange more thins with less people. It is fantastic to be in this situation. You don't have to care about what you say, or how you say it. You can let your social habits down. The important thing is what you PLAY. Because in that situation where nobody knows or judges each other, who you are is what you play. It is an incredible experience about giving everything in the music, all day long for ten days, cut off from the outside world. It is a special feeling of being in the right place at the right time.

Personally, and as a conclusion, I would say that the cruise has opened many doors for me; wonderful breath for continuing my job; the opportunity to know many wonderful young musicians, who I know I will play with later on, and it also opened my eyes to the fact that jazz is really a worldwide expression.

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