Educator
“Professor Haynes was amazing both in and out of class. I learned so much from him and am very grateful.
Best Professor at Bucknell.
Hands down.“
~Course evaluation
AN ARTIST
is one who has, over years of practice (and/or years of persistent undoing):
created a thin, translucent window between inner and outer worlds;
reestablished the translucency present at their beginning;
shared life experience via selfless giving;
accrued inner experience through some medium;
developed a way where there’s little interference from the conscious mind.
~Anonymous
(former Bucknell student)
Director of Jazz Studies
~ Susquehanna University (winter 2012)
~ Nazareth College (spring 2014)
Bucknell Overview
PHILLIP A. HAYNES
An extensively published international recording artist, percussionist, composer, producer, educator, entrepreneur, marketer, coalition builder, improviser, and volunteer
Jazz @ Bucknell
(2004-2013)
Founder, producer, host & booking agent
Internationally recognized, regionally prized, acoustic chamber series
Guest artist classroom visits, open rehearsals, and/or public masterclasses
Created initially by presidential barter establishing the inaugural season
9 seasons of “what’s important” in jazz, including free concerts by:
Muhal Richard Abrams; Ralph Alessi; Tim Berne; Jane Ira Bloom; Joanne Brackeen; Don Byron; Billy Childs; Steve Coleman; Bob Dorough; Dave Douglas; Ellery Eskelin; Robin Eubanks; Mark Feldman; Drew Gress; Ingrid Jensen; David Liebman; Fred Hirsch; Joint Venture; Greg Osby; Dafnis Prieto; Herb Robertson; Paul Smoker; Gary Thomas; Gebhard Ullmann; Manuel Valera; Tim Warfield, Frank Wess . . .
Kushell Artist-in-Residence
(2007-2010)
Director, Bucknell Interdisciplinary Improvisation Ensemble (BIIE)
Jazz Band soloist, rhythm section, and ensemble coach
Assorted classroom visits & masterclasses
Jazz Impromptu Series host & performer
Jazz Open Forum film series presenter
Student recital faculty adviser; small group coach
Bucknell University Department of Music
(2007-Present)
MUSC Introduction to Classic Jazz, fall semester, 2007-2011
MUSC Introduction to Modern Jazz, spring semester, 2008-2012
MUSC William Duckworth’s Jazz, Rock & the Avant Garde, spring 2011
MUSC 397-02; 297-02; 197-02, Percussion & Drumset, 2008-Present
MUSC 399-02; 299-01; 199-01; Improvisation, 2009 – Present
Student recital faculty adviser; small group coach
Affiliate Artist Activities
(2010 – 2012)
Jazz Impromptu Series producer, booking agent, host & performer
Artist liaison for classroom/ensemble/concert activities
Assorted classroom visiting lectures
Improvisation Private Studio Instructor
Jazz Band soloist, rhythm section, and ensemble coach
Student recital faculty adviser
Ensemble Director, BIIE
Bucknell Interdisciplinary Improvisation Ensemble (BIIE)
(2007 – Present)
Director & founder of the University’s ‘performance art’ ensemble
Student/faculty collective uniting Music, Dance, Theater, Word & Visual artists
Spontaneously composed, orchestrated, and staged ‘real time’ performances
Teaching the international ‘tonal to post-Schoenberg’ New Music language(s)
Regular public performance collaborations with visiting artists, including:
Ray Anderson, The Berlin Clarinet Trio; Sylvie Courvousier; ETHEL; Mark Feldman; Drew Gress, Ingrid Jensen; David Liebman; Ursula Oppens; Clarence ‘Herb’ Robertson . . .
Gallery Series
(2009/10)
Producer, host, booking agent & classroom liaison, presenting:
Gamelan Dharma Swara
Guitarist/composer Seth Josel
Indian tabla master, Samir Chatterjee Ensemble
New England Conservatory of Music pianist & Chair, Bruce Brubaker
Bucknell Innovation Group (BIG)
(2011 – 2013)
One of 5 inaugural partners appointed to this faculty driven initiative
Teaching practical innovation (creative, often team based, problem solving)
Design of new interdisciplinary courses and course modules
Proposed Bucknell Innovation Group Experimental Ensemble (BIGEE)
An Integrated Perspectives performance aesthetic lab/workshop uniting student engineers, scientists, artists, marketers, historians, and . . .
IMPULSE: live performance collaboration w/Bio-Medical Engineering, Sculpture II, & BIIE
Guest Lecturer/Presenter
(2008-2011)
Patriot league Academic Conference
Bucknell Entrepreneurship Conference
Bucknell Faculty Learning Series
Teaching & Learning Center
Departments of Computer Science, Bio Medical Engineering, Management, German, and Music
Mansfield University; Nazareth College; Susquehanna University, Pennsylvania Friends of Jazz Society; various national/international festivals
Multi-Department “Town & Gown” Impact
(2007 – Present)
Co-author of Admissions “Culture of Music” indicators for non-music majors
University / community concert, lecture, and student masterclass instigator
Founder and contributor to the Bertrand Streamed Audio Jazz Libraries
100 level course offerings credited for both non-majors and Music majors
Athletics Group Spinning Instructor, (2009-Present)
Bucknell Media Press (BMP) proposal author
SAMI music house faculty advisor (2011-12)
9th year, author of the volunteer student + faculty ‘Pep Band Miracle’
“Nationwide, the most widely heard campus ensemble – for better and worse!”
Director, the Bison Band, Department of Athletics (2004-Present)
C.V.
(upon request)
Contact via Linked-In
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=56828189&trk=tab_pro
Course Evaluations
“I thought the course was interesting and challenging as a music major. I love Phil’s enthusiasm and passion for what he teaches. He really believes in his students and runs class in a way that everyone can learn from. He also is very active in the music department which is very admirable. It’s great to have a professor who is not only actively involved in the field but who actually cares . . . “
“I had no music background before this class, and though I was overwhelmed in the beginning of the course, Prof. Haynes got me up to speed. I am amazed at what I have learned. This course has been incredibly worthwhile.”
“Loved professor Haynes enthusiasm for the class material. He did a wonderful job of continuing to teach the material and relate new material to what we already learned. The homework assignments were extremely helpful at helping me form my own way of better understanding/reading the music.”
“The course seemed way to [sic] difficult at first, but after paying a really large entrance fee, it resulted in the most stimulating class of the semester. Keep pushing students in the future as hard as you pushed us. It’s really worth it in the end!!!”
“Phil’s extensive playing background has allowed him to meet many artists we study . . . definitely the homework listening sessions helped, as well as in class listening and mapping out of songs . . . one of the greatest teachers I have ever had.”
“The class was always engaging and stimulating – I feel more skilled in actively listening to music and making connections w/other disciplines. The Professor’s enthusiasm is contagious!!!”
“. . . [Active] Learning about the culture/history of the times and how it played into and influenced the music. Teacher was very open to suggestion. Really worked with the class instead of dictating. Constantly positive. Encouraged learning in all forms.”
“Awesome teacher!!! Phil really spurs you to think in creative ways. He has a different approach but is amazing at getting his point across. I’ve yet to have a teacher who is more excited to come to class everyday. Awesome teacher with amazing insight.”
w/1st graduates El Schoef, *Christin Cooper, *Nicholas Horner, *Lauren Godfrey^
May 2011
Bucknell Interdisciplinary Improvisation Ensemble, 1st graduates (BIIE the way!):
El Schoepf, University of Hawaii DMA program, clarinet performance;
*Christen Cooper; *Nicholas Horner; *Lauren Godfrey ^
*Outstanding Senior in Music Prize (co-winners)
Fullbright Award Recipient ^
BIIE: Bucknell Interdisciplinary Improvisation
Ensemble
BIIE: IMPACT video short
http://
IMPULSE Dense Network:
An Interdisciplinary Performance Project
www.bucknellinnovationgroup.
Music in the Dark — 8 June, 2012
http://
Jazz Ed — October 2014, pages 8 & 9
http://digitaleditiononline.co
Ask the Experts:
Phil Haynes on Duke Ellington
LEWISBURG, Pa. – Welcome to “Ask the Experts,” a regular web feature that highlights the expertise of various Bucknellians in a range of topics related to current news events and other timely subjects.
This week, we asked Phil Haynes, jazz artist in residence at Bucknell University, about the legacy of Duke Ellington who was born 110 years ago this year. A new recording, “Day Dream,” features Ellington & Strayhorn classics by Steve Rudolph on piano, Drew Gress on bass and Haynes on drums.
Q: What is Duke Ellington’s legacy today?
A: Ellington is one of the pivotal figures in jazz. Take him and Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and those people are still changing the music today.
READ MORE . . . [Bucknell link available soon]
His music, like all the great masters, it lives. He pulled all genres into his own language. Jazz, like America, is a melting pot and for Ellington it’s about celebrating individual voices brought together collectively. It’s a very true democracy. In Europe, we look for being able to blend with other stringed instruments and matching bowing exactly. In jazz, like a democracy, it’s not about an ideal as much as it is a living, changing, breathing system. It’s absolutely vibrant and alive; complete with mistakes and brilliance. If people are being cautious, they are unlikely to be brilliant. Aha experiences don’t happen when you’re being cautious.
When we talk about his legacy, we have to look at how he was as a performer. The name? Duke. He was seen and he was regal. The kind of pride that Ellington exudes and his grace is duke-like. For American culture to see a black African ancestor like this was a new experience. Both he and Louis Armstrong carried themselves beautifully. Everyone could relate to this man’s brilliance and personality. Entertainers still look to that model. There is nothing classier. Who knew in the midst of the 1960s we would have President Barack Obama? People like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were the ones who really made that all possible. They were American artistic ambassadors, Time magazine cover people, household names, whereas masters of modern jazz now, very often, are not.
Q: Talk about the sound he incorporated into his music.
A: He grew up playing and leading society orchestras; just a working musician. In the 1920s, he heard Fletcher Henderson’s band and trumpeter “Bubber” Miley, who used bathroom plungers as mutes. It sounded as though he was talking through his horn. Ellington hired Bubber, and others, and soon he had a brass section that could all talk with their horns. They talk about it as being the jungle music. A piece like “Koko,” one of Ellington’s classics, has all this. It has blues but it’s an expanded blues. He brought the jungle, or Africa, this speaking language and these very strange and exotic sounds into the American – everybody’s – living room through the radio.
We think of Ellington as a big band writer, and he certainly is, but he took popular dance forms, pop music, added the blues and these speaking instruments that were counter/low culture. And yet his music was wildly popular. He didn’t write for five trumpets and five trombones and five saxophones. He wrote for Johnny Hodges. He wrote for Russell Procope. He wrote for “Cat” Anderson and “Cootie” Williams. He wrote specifically for the people in his band at the time. Why? They just weren’t trumpet players, trombonists and clarinetists. They were individuals. The greatest thing great jazz musicians have is their own voices, their own personalities, their own sounds, their own way of interpreting jazz. Ellington knew by hiring these people and listening to them how they would sound in his compositions. He was writing for an orchestra of individuals. Instead of one idealized sound, it’ a collection, a democratic rally of people. That to me is his biggest legacy.
Q: He pulled from all genres, right?
A: Duke’s catalog is vast. Of course, he was writing jazz. But he wrote two- to three-thousand pieces. Then there are the re-dos on the catalog. Not because they weren’t right the first time, but because he’d say, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do this?” Or somebody in the band started improvising riffs and it became part of the arrangement. What’s amazing is the creative quality level over decades.
There’s more blues than anything else in Ellington. He takes this very humble form and he popularizes it for big band dance, and yet he’s using all these talking, strange sounding instruments and you listen even in the 30s to a piece like “Koko” and the harmony is odd. It’s modern. There is a direct lineage that goes from Duke to Thelonious Monk, the great be-bop piano player, and right out to Cecil Taylor. Anyone who was an innovator in jazz had to be a revolutionary and Ellington was a revolutionary. You listen to his harmony and what he popularized, it’s different.
He did all these blues works. He was listening to classical music. He wanted to feature his band, so he was doing film score work. Imagine, black bands in the 30s doing film scores and captured live – not in white face – often in black face. They crossed all kinds of barriers and Duke took this music and started writing multi-movement suites, a whole different scale. Then before the 60s, he started writing sacred music. There’s nothing that he doesn’t touch as an American and he always sounds like Ellington.
Ellington called his music “American music.” It’s jazz, it’s a melting pot. He’s taking elements – rag, blues, the concerto format, American popular song – and then he’s pulling in international sources from around the world. He goes to Asia and writes “The Far East Suite.” You can hear the influences. He takes some of the basic harmonic Asian language and feeds it in through the blues and his esthetic and his band’s esthetic and, what happens, we have world music evolving.
Q: Your favorite Ellington recordings?
A: If you’re starting to introduce someone to Ellington, you can’t miss the Jimmy Blanton-Ben Webster so-called band. That era – the 30s and 40s – is classic. It’s quintessential Ellington.
We also have to talk about Ellington the soloist, Ellington the small group artist. Imagine in the late 50s he meets the new masters of the emerging avant-garde – Max Roach and Charles Mingus. There are all kinds of stories about “Money Jungle.” It’s great. It’s wild. Read the stories and listen to the music. These guys were not getting along. You’d think the new guys would be running roughshod over the old Ellington and there’s no doubt it becomes his record. They are all at wits end with each other and with the music and yet because no one is taking it easy, they’re all taking chances. It is wild, woolly, entertaining and utterly unpredictable. It is some of the most amazing Ellington. It’s true jazz. You can be in a democracy and have an argument. I love that.
I love the music from “The Far East Suite.” It’s a great album in part because it is beautifully recorded. It’s the early 60s era of his band. But one, “Duke Ellington and His Orchestra in Concert in Europe” from 1965, is beautifully captured by French radio and, wow, what power. To me, it’s not as smooth and not just a dance band. It’s a band that could play any night of the week and you never knew what was going to come out of them. Listen to this and you hear the majesty, you hear the professionalism, and you hear all these surprises constantly – and the mistakes. But not bad mistakes, just being human. Ellington embraced humanity, in a way. Instead of looking for the idealized human, he realized the idealized human being was right in front of him. He celebrates you how you are. Ellington certainly could smell the roses and help the rest of us do it, too.
We also need to talk about “Ellington at Newport” because it is such a famous live concert. These people were celebrated. They were pop-rock like stars. The crowd is going wild and in a blues Paul Gonsalves, his tenor player at the time, plays a 27 chorus solo, and the audience is winding it up. And there’s this blond woman who is dancing out in front of the audience and everybody is going nuts. And we’ve got it on tape. Wow.
New editions of “Ask the Experts” will appear on the Bucknell University website on most Thursdays during the fall and spring semesters and on occasion throughout the summer. If you have ideas for future questions or are a faculty or staff member who would like to participate, please contact Sam Alcorn.
To learn more about faculty and staff experts who can speak on a variety of news topics, visit Bucknell’s searchable Experts Guide and the Ask the Experts archive.
Contact: Division of Communications
Bucknell Today:
Radio interview w/ Mislav Forrester ’13
LISTEN . . .
[available soon!]
~ educator & fan of self-teaching
