How learning jazz is a study of the self

Internationally renowned jazz pianist and composer, Michael Cain, is visiting the School of Music in August, where he will be teaching jazz students how, among other things, learning jazz is a study of the self.

Cain is currently the Director of the Electronic and Recording Arts (EMRA) program at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota, one of the United States’ oldest and largest community-based music education centres. Prior to that Cain has been a professor at the Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, and Brandon University in Canada.

In his workshops with jazz students, he will be focusing on piano playing in a contemporary world, improvisation and electronic music. “And any other topics and questions students might have about me or some of the projects and musicians I’ve been able to work with,” he says.

He has a lot of lived experience as a musician to share with students. Cain began gaining recognition in the mid 1980s while still a student at the California Institute of the Arts, performing, touring, and recording with jazz greats, including James Newton, jazz vocalist Marlena Shaw, the Gerald Wilson Orchestra and drummer Billy Higgins among others.

After moving to New York in 1990, he became a first call pianist, working with drum legend Jack DeJohnette for nine years, as well as Dave Holland, Ravi Coltrane, Bobby McFerrin, Terence Blanchard, Stanley Turrentine, Lauren Hill, Pat Metheny and others.

He has received numerous awards, including a 2006 Grammy nomination for Dance of the Infidel, on which he is pianist and co-arranger, and has recorded several records as sideman and a leader.
 

“One thing I have found over the years is there can be a big difference in the realities and approaches of professional music communities, and what students might imagine those to be. I do like sharing real-world, so to speak, experiences that have had a profound impact on my development, where whole new understandings were acquired.

“I’ll be pulling back the curtain, a bit, on the musical communities I’ve been lucky to be a part of and speak to some of the deeper truths, teachings and insights that I gained from those experiences that I’ve found to be particularly helpful.”

At Brandon University, Cain taught Keith Price, a guitarist, composer and lecturer now at the School of Music at the University of Auckland, who was determined to bring Cain to Aotearoa, so students at the School could be exposed to the teacher and musician who had a profound influence on him.

“Michael completely changed the way I listen to music and approach performance and composition by explaining how social dance and movement are vital in understanding African American music and African diasporic music in general,” says Price.

“And how the subconscious mind can be trained and utilised to deliver surprisingly creative results. I would likely not have become a full-time academic without his mentorship.”

Cain first started playing the piano at the age of four and the following year began studying classical music. By the age of ten it was jazz that became predominant, as did integrating several kinds of popular music, as he has throughout his career.

“Jazz is hybrid music that continues to evolve and touches so many kinds of music,” he says.

Teaching music is a natural extension of being a musician. “Being a musician is essentially about service, to others and music itself. Teaching brings the experience of music full circle.”

What advice would he offer to aspiring jazz musicians? “Learning jazz is largely, among other things, the study of the self. Learn the tradition but be prepared to learn who you are as well. Understand you are both artist and entrepreneur at the same time. And both matter.”

Michael Cain will be giving his first-ever performance in Aotearoa New Zealand at the Anthology Lounge in Karangahape Rd on 24 August, where he will showcase his particular blend of traditional and electronic jazz, joined by Keith Price on guitar, Cameron McArthur on bass and Ron Samson on drums.