The Quincy Jones Music Consortium
Q told me he had to go to Israel, to meet with Putin and other heads of state. He had to fix the Palestinian crisis before he died.
Anybody else tells you a story like this and your eyes roll into the back of your head. But Quincy’s on an airplane seemingly more than he’s home. He’s trying to exact change. And people listen to him.
He hopes they listen to him about music education. He thinks we need it. That everywhere he goes people are listening to American music, but those in our country are woefully uninformed as to our heritage. He believes this has got to change.
Thus, the Quincy Jones Music Consortium.
Actually, he’s not the only driving force. There’s this guy Jeffrey Walker. A money man, presently a teacher at Harvard Business School. When he strode onto the dais and began speaking I was enthralled. Some people have a way of drawing you in and closing you, wrapping a net around you when you thought you were standing on the outside.
That’s why I was in New York. For the second meeting of the Quincy Jones Music Consortium. Mostly those in music education. And Marty Albertson, CEO of Guitar Center, and Herbie Hancock, and me…
There’s this organization, DonorsChoose.org Talk about the power of one.
Charles Best was a social studies teacher in the Bronx. Confronted with the challenges of the public school system. Where you’ve got the will, but very few of the tools. So, he created a site where teachers could put up their needs in plain English, and raise funds from the general public, seemingly instantly. It was easy to ask for the money, and usually it came rolling in. This is not a secret, Charles has been on Oprah, but watching him tell the story was inspirational. He wasn’t about charisma, he wasn’t about self-aggrandization, he was about results.
Wow. A teacher needs crayons, art supplies? Maybe only a couple of hundred dollars total? Who wouldn’t give a couple of bucks. It’s us helping us, in a world where there’s gridlock in D.C. and those with the big bucks seemingly want a pound of flesh for the cash. Or require you to fill out so many forms and jump through so many hoops, you can’t bother. Do you know how busy teachers are already?
And Charles is not the only one.
David Wish was a first grade teacher in the Bay Area, in an underprivileged, undernourished urban school. He was also a fanatical musician. He wanted to meld the two. So he ran around to all his guitarist friends, told them they could either pay him the money they owed him, or give him one of their guitars. And with the resultant axes, he started a school music program. Where kids played the music they wanted to. Rock, hip-hop, everything that could be performed with guitar, bass, keyboard and drums.
It’s a raging success. David went on about scalability. He can instruct a teacher how to teach little kids to rock very quickly. And the cost to each individual student is miniscule.
But it is about teachers. He first roped in his aforementioned music friends. They didn’t show up, they made excuses. They could play, but they couldn’t instruct, they let the little kids down.
David now has 45,000 kids enrolled in Little Kids Rock.
And it is about teachers. Marty Albertson wants to train music teachers to do what music schools do not. How to interact with the community, to raise funds, to keep their music programs alive. He’s willing to put up serious Guitar Center coin for a program called "All In" that creates multi-day gatherings to help these teachers learn how to do it.
And what do we want these kids to learn?
That’s Q’s passion. They’ve created an entire curriculum. Encompassing the history of American music. Screw kids taking lessons in order to raise their math and English scores, kids need to learn music for music itself. They need to know about their culture, where they come from, how they fit in.
But there are side benefits. There was this principal from the Bronx who told about the power of music. It kept kids in school. Students come to play. Otherwise, it’s hard to keep their attention, they stay home, they join gangs.
Personally, I’d follow the wedge opened by David Wish. A simple program with results that can be easily understood. Use the excitement and passion to get kids playing contemporary music in all schools and then bring in history and orchestra behind it. You’ve got to start with success.
But the consortium is fighting on all fronts. They want some of that government money. And Quincy opens doors.
As for ultimate success…
I heard something brilliant from a fundraising expert. She said: "You don’t need leadership if you have certainty."
Voila! That’s it! People are always looking for the answer. Usually, the answer comes after the start. You’ve got to begin in order to find out where you’re going. But if you never begin, you never get to the destination.
This is what has been lacking in the music business. It has historically been run by the labels, by the RIAA. Which are about protection of their present business model as opposed to any kind of vision, any kind of leadership. I wouldn’t follow Mitch Bainwol anywhere. Nor the heads of any label. Because they’ve got their heads up their asses. Does Daniel Ek at Spotify have the answers? I’m not sure. But he’s trying to lead in this uncertain world. Even Irving Azoff and Michael Rapino too. They’re in search of answers.
When things are bad, we need to be led out of the wilderness. We’ve got to get behind somebody. Funny, in the music industry, the acts used to be the leaders. Some still are. Trent Reznor is a prime example. He’s trying to do it without sacrificing his integrity, without selling out to the man, because music, when done right, must be pure. Shawn Fanning created a platform where all people could have all music. Was it economically flawed? Of course. But if you think restricting access to copyrighted material is the answer, you’re unaware of how many sites hosting copyrighted material have sprung up since the crackdown on the Pirate Bay. They’re multiplying like crazy.
So, will Quincy and Jeffrey and Marty succeed in their mission?
The answer is unclear. But they’re leading. They’re laying down their money and their time. And that’s where you start.
