Hell Hath No Fury...

Before you read this letter I wrote to Mike Vax, I should give you a little of the back story behind it...

Mike Vax is a resident of Prescott who used to play lead trumpet in the Stan Kenton big band. This is kind of a big deal, as the Kenton band is one of THE top five jazz bands, historically speaking. Eight years ago, he started a jazz festival (called the Jazz Summit) where he brings in other jazz musicians and they have concerts throughout the weekend. The "pros" also do clinics for the high school musicians in the area, and my high school has been a part of this festival for the past two years.

Sounds like a nice guy, huh? It's a nice idea, but done in a way that is not good. As I said before, Mike Vax is not only a trumpet player, but a lead trumpet player, so the ego is so over-inflated I'm surprised he can fit through the door.

Anyway--here's the letter I wrote to him after the festival yesterday. I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

August 30, 2009

Mike,

As a music educator for the past fourteen years, I feel I have the best job in the world. I have the opportunity to teach my students about music and in the process instill a life-long love of the arts. I would say that the vast majority of my professional days are exceptional, and I leave at the end of the day feeling like I’ve done what I set out to do.

I have had two “low points” in my career, and yesterday at the Jazz Summit was one of them. I was humiliated publicly by a clinician, made to feel stupid and inferior by another director, and belittled and yelled at by you.

Scott’s comment about my selection of music for my band is a comment that should have been made privately to me—not in front of my band and the entire audience. Of course I know who Sammy Nestico is, but to insinuate that all of my students –many of whom hadn’t even played jazz before school started this year—should all know who he is after two weeks is ridiculous. I have plenty of Nestico in my library, and we play several of his charts throughout the year. The performance yesterday was one small “snapshot” of our year, and his comment made it seem like I don’t know what I’m doing at all.

After my band’s clinic, Doug Tidaback asked me if I’d had any jazz training at all. Needless to say, this didn’t sit too well with me. As you know, I attended Brigham Young University and studied jazz with Ray Smith, who directs one of the top jazz programs in the country. I didn’t bother telling Doug this, as he thinks what he does is better than what anyone else could ever do.

Throughout the day, you continually made comments to me about my students and what they couldn’t do, as if I didn’t know how to manage my students. My students are extremely well behaved and respectful. Perhaps we shouldn’t have left before Doug’s band finished, but I will tell you that we were there the entire day and not ONE of my students took out a cell phone the entire time. Doug’s kids were continually texting on their phones during all of the performances. Who got more out of the performances?

You and your clinicians have no idea what it is like to teach in rural Arizona, where we don’t have the resources that schools in larger cities do. There aren’t teachers available for private lessons, we don’t have a university nearby, and at Bradshaw, many of my student’s parents didn’t even attend college. Even if we did have teachers, most of my students couldn’t afford to take lessons—their parents are barely paying the rent. Most of my students don’t even have a clue what jazz is, and I have a huge job to do in teaching them the language, culture and history of jazz. I work hard to do this under a severe time crunch. The fact that your festival is three weeks after school starts, and I’m expected to have two charts ready to perform makes it difficult for me to get to deep into what jazz is…I’m too busy teaching the notes on the page.

You gave me an ultimatum yesterday (again in front of my students when it should have been done privately.) You said that if we couldn’t stay, we couldn’t play. I don’t deal well with people who give me ultimatums—that’s not how an educator operates. In the future, we won’t have anything to do with you or your festival. I am enclosing a check for the tickets we sold, and you can keep the money that you would have given us as a donation. Better yet, give it to Dan Bradstreet. He works way too hard at this festival and doesn’t get enough out of it financially. It seems as though neither of us can live up to your expectations. You cuss at me, speak disrespectfully and condescendingly to me and nothing I can do is good enough. I am fairly certain he feels the same way.

Life is too short to deal with people like you. I refuse to be treated like a lesser person—a little girl who doesn’t know the first thing about jazz or how to teach it. I don’t have time for it anymore. Please don’t ask me to be a part of your festival anymore. It’s not “about the kids,” it’s about you and your opportunity to re-live the glory days with other musicians in the name of “doing it for the kids.”

I will continue to do the very best I can with my students and the limited resources I am given. That is my job as an educator—not to cater to the whims of others. I have to trust in my own judgment and what I know is best for my students.

Respectfully,
Amie Cobb