Atlanta Jazz Hero
Dr. Gordon Vernick, a jazz trumpeter and educator, has had a huge impact on the Atlanta Jazz scene over the past few decades as a professor of music and coordinator of Jazz Studies at Georgia State University. He’s taken the initiative of starting multiple programs, presenting educational jazz performances, bringing renown touring jazz artists to town for concerts and master classes, curating jam sessions, taking live jazz programs into our public schools, and personally instructing middle-school kids in playing jazz.
The venues for jazz in Atlanta may come and go – the city does not presently have a full-time jazz venue – but trumpeter, all-levels educator, professor of music and coordinator of Jazz Studies at Georgia State University Dr. Gordon Vernick continues to host a weekly Wednesday night jazz jam at the Red-Light Café, providing what he believes is a necessary experience for players of any age to refine their professional and performance skills.
Vernick believes that students need to play in order to learn their craft! How radical! And the Red Light Café has been a great place to do this because, as he says, “It’s a listening venue . . . when you go there, you sit and listen to the music, so much better than a lot of places where music is an afterthought or backdrop.
“The only way to find out if you know a song is to get up in front of people and play it,” he continues. “ I absolutely do these jam sessions for educational purposes. How are we going to further this art if people aren’t playing it?” He also asserts that jazz artists must learn to do more than play, including business and promotional skills. “We can’t train musicians for a field [of unquestioned conventions, for instance] that has a questionable future – that’s doing them a disservice. Give the next generation a host of options, and they’ll take the music to the next level.”
Options are what Dr. Vernick activates. At GSU he’s taken the initiative of starting multiple programs, presenting educational jazz performances, bringing touring jazz artists to town for concerts and master classes, curating jam sessions, taking live jazz programs into our public schools, and personally instructing middle-school kids in playing jazz. Holding a BA in Music from Ithaca College, NY, Masters in music from the University of Miami and Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. He has served as president of the Georgia Association of Jazz Educators and chair of the International Association of Jazz Educators’ curriculum committee. He was a founding board member of SOJA (Southeastern Organization of Jazz Arts) in Atlanta and has worked side by side with just about everyone involved with jazz performance or education in the city for years.
But also: He is currently active as a clinician, having taught or enjoyed residencies at the Conservatory of San Juan, P.R., Taipei and Singapore American schools, Bangkok and Jakarta International Schools, Columbia College (Chicago), the University of Northern Colorado and the Conservatory of Bordeaux. He’s an ace trumpet freelancer, having played in ensembles ranging from jazz quartet to symphony orchestra widely – from Costa Rica to Moscow, Brazil to Beijing, and with diverse world-renown jazz artists. He is director of the Rialto Youth Jazz Orchestra and musical director of Rialto’s Jazz for Kids middle school outreach program.His podcast Jazz Insights, created in May 2009 with 240 episodes featuring simple explanations and musical examples of musical issues, has been downloaded over 12 million times. And he leads the GSU Faculty Jazztet which has appeared at the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the High Museum of Art Jazz Series, the Jazz Education Network Conference (JEN), among other places.
Tirelessly dedicated to his students and the art form, Dr. Gordon Vernick has mentored many – indeed most – of the jazz musicians emerging Atlanta during his time here. That’s an enduring gift from a Jazz Hero.
By J. Scott Fugate and Evette Dorham
