The music of Lennon and McCartney has appeared in the repertoire of a number of jazz artists and bands including the Count Basie Orchestra, Sarah Vaughan, Maynard Ferguson, and Lynne Arriale. It may have been one of these that influenced Fritz Renold in his choice for the theme of his 2006 jazz education project or it may have been the original Beatles’ versions that he heard in his youth. Whatever the reason, his decision to pay tribute to the music of the Beatles proved very wise as it so uniquely provided enjoyment, enhancement, and enrichment in the lives of more than 75 music students.
As a graduate of Berklee School of Music, Renold has generated a wide circle of musical friends and acquaintances; it is from this rich source that he carefully selects his guest musicians. Each year he assembles a powerful and effective team by matching Swiss- and European-based musicians with American musicians. This clever and carefully thought-out combination helps to shape and deliver high quality music with amazing results. The musicians he chooses are not just terrific players and great educators; they are so obviously people who believe in the project.
Like any successful education project, a great deal of planning went into this event. He is actually already working on the music for 2008-2009! Although the theme, the faculty, and the students change each year there are certain underlying qualities that ensure maximum value for the participants. A priority for the jazzaar educational design is that it carries with it well-defined aims and objectives. The welfare of the jazzaar students is of paramount importance with discovery, innovation, exploration, social and musical interaction, quality leadership, and quality faculty combining to produce a highly effective curriculum.
Rehearsals for the event began Monday, April 17. Students and faculty (who had previously not worked together) began to combine jazz, pop, Latin, and orchestral music. There were nervous moments; but confidence levels grew, adjustments were made, and people began to trust each other. Problems were overcome and the magic of musical interaction and participation took over.
The early evening workshops and seminars provided a diversion for the challenging arrangements of Lennon and McCartney songs, while at the same time they introduced the students to a range of important topics including improvisation, Latin jazz, learning music by ear, vocal arranging, composition techniques, listening to jazz, and trumpet mouthpiece design. The students and faculty enjoyed further musical exploration at the after-hours jam sessions. These took place at the home of Bobby Leiser, a true character of the European jazz festival scene. For a number of years, Bobby had been on the road with Miles Davis and many other jazz greats. The memorabilia adorning his home, plus his amazing collection of Hammond organs, provided the perfect venue for successful jamming and after-hours conversations. Just maybe, the spirits of those musicians whose names were in the posters decorating the walls helped bring out the best in those exploring the music.
The climax and showcase to this amazing jazz education project were the three evening concerts. Since the majority of those involved had not been around during the Beatle years, Renold cleverly scheduled the first concert as a Beatles tribute by the guest band, the “Fab Four,” (Shawn Tybor as “John,” Ron Moulton as “Paul,” Mike Naud as “George,” and Tim Pomeroy as “Ringo”). This concert gave the youngsters a great opportunity to experience – in the most authentic way possible – the music of the Beatles’ 1964-1971 period. It also served as an excellent reminder to those who were around when the music was first performed. The Fab Four are residents of Denver, Colo., and do an amazing job of not only performing Beatles music but also living it out. The inflections, the body language, the mannerisms, and even the “Liverpudlian” accents of the original four are all there. Clad in the instantly recognizable gray Beatle suits the Fab Four made an immediate impression on the capacity audience. The first set featured the music of the early Beatles 1964-66 and was well performed and well received. An impressive costume change saw the Fab Four take the stage for the second set dressed in the bright colored Sergeant Pepper style costumes. The attention to detail, the great music played with 100 percent commitment and enthusiasm ensured that the music of the Beatles provided the perfect start to this concert series.
In many ways the most challenging part of the project was the music featured in the Thursday evening concert. In preparation for this section of the project, arranger Adi Yeshaya produced quality arrangements of such Beatles classics as Let It Be, Hard Days Night, And I Love Her, Fool on the Hill, and Hey Jude. During early rehearsals the large ensemble, which was comprised of a big band with extended Latin rhythm section, two vocal soloists, and vocal backing group, had difficulty settling into the various Latin styles of the arrangements. However, with the skilful directing of Adi Yeshaya and the support of Tony Hayes (vocals and sax), Helen Renold (vocals), Arnold Moueza and Willy Kotoun (percussion), confidence levels grew quickly and everyone settled into enjoying the music – feeling it rather than reading it! In these early rehearsals it was noticeable how difficult moments in the music were eased by discussions between the faculty members and students and between the various sections of the band. By the time the musicians took the stage Thursday evening everyone was ready to perform “Beatles in Salsa”. The quality and vitality of the performance was highly infectious. I have rarely seen such a large audience totally immersed in the rhythm of the music. Not a still body in the house – only a pity there wasn’t a dance floor as this was just the perfect occasion for dancing.

The Friday night performance was billed as “Beatles in Symphony” and featured the Fab Four with the Aargauer Jugend Pops Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Renold. This concert truly represented what musical performance is all about. It had everything – every emotion from laughter to tears and everything in between, people tapping their feet to the faster tunes and swaying to the slower tunes; it featured outstanding musical arrangements performed to an extremely high level. It had great rapport with the capacity audience, every one of whom must have gone home knowing they had been a part of such a special evening.
As a trumpet player it would have been wonderful to have played in this exciting project and yet had I done so I would have missed out on the opportunity to hear from an audience member’s perspective the total effect of such superbly crafted arrangements. It was quite magical. Across the history of jazz and big band music, it is arrangers who have given ensembles their characteristic tone and style. In this respect Robert Freedman, Fritz Renold, and Willie Murillo (on Eleanor Rigby) exhibited their extraordinary skill, producing high calibre arrangements that proved absolutely perfect for the occasion.
Those who have experienced “jazzaar concerts” now await with much excitement and anticipation the project in 2007 (April 15-21); the theme announced is “Classics.” One night will be the music of Miles Davis featuring Randy Brecker and another night will feature Gary Burton and Makoto Ozone.

Over the years jazz education outside the United States has been somewhat under-reported in the Jazz Education Journal. This is not a criticism, but more an indication of how jazz education projects can take place in isolation, often in remote parts of the world, and as a result, remain hidden gems of the jazz education world. Furthermore, the contributions made throughout the history of jazz by Europe, and indeed other parts of the world, even though well appreciated by those involved in the business, have also been somewhat under-credited. One only has to examine jazz history books to realize that the role played by Europe, especially in the area of generating a good level of audience support and appreciation for modern jazz, generally receives less than its fair share of credit.
As successful as these projects usually are, the priorities for those organizing the event place most issues way ahead of writing articles about the event. This is rather a shame because often (but not always) great things happen at such events. Sometimes these take place, relatively speaking, on “our own doorstep” and so it is even more surprising when we discover them. Within the first hour of arriving in Aarau (pronounced A’Row), Switzerland, it was obvious to me that here was a jazz education project that we should all know more about.

Fritz Renold, organizer and mastermind of the project now in its 15th year, has taken an interesting approach to jazz education. Preferring less formal classroom-based, teacher-led sessions, he places professional players and students together in ensembles that rehearse over a six-day period culminating in evening concerts on the final three days. Big band, symphony orchestra, and vocal music ensemble all play an important part of Renold’s ongoing project.Instrumental students numbered around 60 with the vocal students of around 12 joined by guest vocal group “Black Voices” from Birmingham, United Kingdom. Further activities included a series of workshops on various subjects including African Gospel Music, The Use of Computer and Synthesizer Sounds on Stage, Improvisation for Beginners, Drums versus Percussion, Advanced Improvisation, Middle Eastern Music, and a Trumpet Seminar with Randy Brecker.

Each year Renold, along with his wife Helen who plays a crucial role in the continued running of the project, assembles an impressive line-up of professional players. As a graduate of Berklee College of Music and a top player himself, he has been able to hand pick players who are not only his friends but also have superb communication skills and an excellent attitude towards music and learning. The team for this year’s event comprised Helen Renold, Steven Bernstein, Barry Lee Hall, Amir Elsaffar, Vincent Gardner, Dave Taylor, Donny McCaslin, Greg Tardy, Tommy Smith, Adam Nussbaum, Danny Gottlieb, Randy Brecker, Jamshied Sharifi, Renata Friederich, Patrick Furrer, Werner “Vana” Gierig, Monika Altdorfer, Eliane Zweifel, Tobias Preisig, Daniel Scharer, Gildas Boclé, Bernd Konrad, Willie Murillo, Miroslav Vitous. Arnold Moueza, Oliver Serigba, The Black Voices, Patrick Lerchmüller, and Christof Schnyder.

Each year a specific theme is chosen for the event with this year’s being African Heritage. In previous years, themes have included Brazilian Music, Gospel Music as Roots and Fruits, the Music of Kurt Weill, Duke Ellington and Euphrates and Tigris (a fusion of the Blues with Middle Eastern music).
The uniqueness of Renold’s approach to his jazz education project comes from the choice of repertoire. Unlike other jazz education events I have attended, standard tunes are not part of this project. Instead, all tunes are original compositions focusing on the theme of the event. Renold himself contributed a substantial amount of material including African Heritage Overture, Suite from Springtime, Where is this World Going to Go, If There’s Love, and Let Wisdom Guide You All Your Life. Five compositions from Sharifi made up most of the first half of one of the concerts. Night Creature I, II & III from Duke Ellington were also included in the concert program. One of the most challenging compositions performed during the week was Mike Abene’s Heritage New/Old And Then Some, a concerto for bass trombone written for Dave Taylor. The score was frightening to look at, let alone play. The ease with which Musical Director Patrick Furrer controlled the orchestra was testament to the serious amount of preparation he must have completed for the performance of this complicated work. Dave Taylor’s performance showed his total command of the trombone within the most contemporary of pieces. Although Taylor was featured soloist for the final concert of the week, his humbleness and total commitment towards this project (true for all members of this team) was evident as he joined the trombone section of the Youth Orchestra for the final piece of the week.
“Imagine having the premiere bass trombonist in the world just sit in with the section,” commented Ferrer.
Clearly, what made this such a positive and creative experience came from attitude. Everyone helped to shape the end result by adding constructive comment and support, with the receptiveness and attitude of the student players making the comments of the professional players even more effective. The speed at which the young players learned was another feature of the week.
“At the first rehearsal last Saturday I felt sure there was no way these kids would ever do it, but they worked so hard and learned so quickly that they not only played a great gig but did it in absolute style. We were all so proud of them,” said New York based trumpeter Steven Bernstein, who incidentally played some impressive slide trumpet (and secretly hopes that one of Renold’s future compositions will be a “Concerto for Slide Trumpet”).
Never has funding for the arts been as important as it is today, and youth music and jazz must surely top the list of the most needy. Yet, with financial support comes the danger that the music produced can be obscure and inaccessible music. For sure I have heard more than my share of music that fits that description. The music of Renold and Sharifi certainly does not fall into that category. It is as enjoyable for the audience as it is for the performer; in fact, it is almost as though the audience is invited to be a part of the performance. This promotes a better understanding of the music, and even during its more obscure moments, audience members looked involved and attentive. Clearly Renold writes from the heart, a characteristic that is sure to guarantee the longevity of this project.
So why has this project continued so successfully for over 14 years? The answer lies in the fact that like all good jazz educators, Renold never stops working, never stops thinking about his next project. Quite simply, he never stops. Like most jazz educators, he is a workaholic. Having experienced the vibrancy of the Jazzaar week in Aarau, Switzerland, I remain completely mystified as to how this event has existed for so long without the international publicity and recognition it deserves.
Full marks to Fritz, Helen, and the team!
The Jazzaar project is supported by the County of Aargau, the City of Aarau, and several private sponsors.