Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris' Concept of Movement as Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula

One of the challenges faced in post-secondary jazz education across the GTA is finding qualified instructors who are familiar with dialogical methods for teaching African American jazz histories. More specifically, finding and hiring African American instructors whose musical genealogy can be delineated from black oral/aural histories and can draw from these historicities. Unless the narratives of this music are unpacked, analyzed and taught from its internal elements, which embodies the symbiosis and synthesis of African American dance, theatrics, poetics and American black English that encapsulates the African American-ness in jazz, then there remains a risk that this folk music will become more and more diluted. Consequently, it is my belief that current music educators across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) should consider alternative methods of pedagogy if students are to understand the historicity the historical authenticity of this African American folk music. The idea for this study originated from my observation of a lack of African American-nessAfrican American narratives not being used as a pedagogical tool in post-secondary jazz curricula across the GTA. Therefore, this multi-case study will lead to the creation of an alternative curriculum that incorporates new teaching methods based on African American narratives. Dr. Barry Harris is one such educator who incorporates new teaching methods based on African American narratives. Therefore, I seek to unpack and analyze the musical and social upbringing that contributed to African American jazz pianist and educator Dr. Barry Harris primary contribution to jazz education, which is his concept of movement, while also expanding upon it. When these antecedents of Harris concept of movement have been analyzed, they will use them as a compliance for the cultivation and filling in of gaps in post-secondary jazz curricula across the GTA.