Derek Douget passes the music forward at the Heritage School of Music.txt
21st August 2019 · 0 Comments
By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer
Derek Douget remembers the significance of attending a jazz camp at Southern University and A&M College of Baton Rouge headed by clarinetist/educator Alvin Batiste. “I felt like I finally found people who were like-minded,” says the saxophonist who holds the position of Coordinator of Music Education for the Heritage School of Music. “I think that’s pretty important for a teenager growing up. It was the first time I really got to play jazz with people who could actually play – it was illuminating, helpful, frightening and, yeah, it was fun.”
Douget, 44, grew up in Gonzales, Louisiana and moved to New Orleans in 1993 to attend the University of New Orleans where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He brings elements of that youthful opportunity and his other educational and musical experiences to the students attending the Don “Moose” Jamison Heritage School of Music program that is supported by the Jazz & Heritage Foundation.
The school is now accepting applications for its program, which is for kids 10 to 17 years old, with classes held on Saturday mornings and after school on Thursday evenings from September through December, 2019 and January through May, 2020. It is designed for those young people who have had at least one year experience playing music and have their own instrument. A Beginners Program is also offered by the institution. (For further information and application forms go to www.heritageschoolofmusic.org.The deadline to apply is September 1, 2019.)
“If a kid is interested (in attending) at all, it is definitely going to help them develop as a musician as far as their technique on their instrument and their overall knowledge of music,” Douget promises. “We also teach them a lot about the musical culture of New Orleans. We try to teach them how music is basically an important part of the ritual in New Orleans and it’s not just something you put on in the background on the radio. It’s actually something that’s a part of the ceremony here. If you want your child to learn a little more about particularly New Orleans music culture, it (the Heritage School) is a good place to go because all of the teachers there are professionals who play on a regular basis. So it’s not like you’re getting theoretical information.”
Douget stands as a highly accomplished musician who performs Friday nights with the Ellis Marsalis Quintet, regularly with drum master Herlin Riley, leads his own combos and has been named the artist in residence of the Ellis Marsalis Center Big Band. A mild mannered man, Douget blows with a certain informed passion especially when heard aside trumpeter Ashlin Parker in Marsalis’ strong combo. At the group’s performance at this year’s Satchmo SummerFest, the band received a rousing reception from the crowd who, it might be assumed, included a fair amount of traditional jazz stalwarts. When the music is this good, it’s probably safe to say, there were those who thought: “Oh, this is modern jazz? I like this.”
The Heritage School of Music was founded in 1990 and named in honor of Don Jamison, a music lover, saxophonist, WWOZ deejay, Jazz & Heritage Foundation board member and social and political activist who worked with leaders like A. L. Davis and the Rev. Avery Alexander. Saxophonist and educator Kidd Jordan founded the school that continues to provide free classes in music education. Douget came onboard in 2010 as a lead teacher and administer of the program.
Douget, who is an adjunct woodwind teacher at UNO, began playing saxophone at age 10 and it was love at first sight when he saw the instrument while attending a high school band concert where his sister performed. “That’s what I want to play,” he remembers thinking and urged his parents to lease a sax for him.
Fortuitously, a relative sent the pre-teen a package of CDs including those by jazz icons like saxophonists Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman and the big band sounds of the Count Basie Orchestra. “I had to try to figure out what they were doing,” remembers Douget of the challenge.
His high school band director was most informed on classical music and naturally the saxophonist played in the school’s concert and marching band. Eventually, he recalls, some jazz was included. “That was mostly because they didn’t know what to do with me. I was pretty bored.”
Douget’s story is not an unfamiliar one particularly for someone growing up outside of a metropolitan area and considering the cut-backs in music programs in schools overall. The Heritage School of Music is just one of several programs like the Satchmo Summer Jazz Camp and the Roots of Music that are bringing young musicians together under the tutelage of some of this city’s finest professional musicians. The Heritage School staff includes such exemplary artists as drummer Ricky Sebastian, vocalist Leah Chase, pianist Michael Pellera and trumpeter Leon “Kid Chocolate” Brown. Its alumni boasts now working musicians like trumpeter John Michael Bradford, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Jason Stewart.
A huge jump forward for the Heritage School occurred in 2014 when it moved from Dillard University to the newly opened and specifically designed George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center on North Rampart Street.
“Everything changed,” declares Douget who has worked at both locations. “Everything at Dillard was a logistical nightmare. Now we have dedicated classrooms and big flat screens for watching videos of musicians. Anything you’d possibly want to teach or to learn from is there. It pretty much changed the quality of the education that we can provide.”
The program isn’t strictly focused on jazz, Douget explains. “We teach general music theory and general music education with an emphasis on New Orleans music. We teach them music using the songbook of New Orleans. We use basically the repertoire of New Orleans composers from early jazz to Fats Domino, James Black, Alvin Batiste, Ellis Marsalis through Nicholas Payton.”
“I wanted to model myself after the professional musicians who were teachers who helped me because I thought what they were doing was important,” Douget says of his duel roles as artist and educator. “It’s important to give back to the little ones.”
“Come audition,” Douget encourages. “It’s a great program.”
This article originally published in the August 19, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
