All that jazz is about the kids

Even after more than 20 years in teaching, Eddy Williams says he will never understand why kids love challenges.

The retired Lewiston music teacher challenged his students with jazz, a assignment not to be taken lightly. Musician Duke Ellington once said playing "bop" is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

"The secret to the whole thing," Williams says, leaning forward to emphasize the importance of what he is about to say, "The secret to the whole thing is giving kids incentives to meet those challenges."

The University of Idaho Jazz Festival was one of the carrots that led Williams and his students to success.

In the early 1970s Williams joined the teaching staff at Lewiston High School and created its first jazz band. At about the same time the UI organized its first jazz festival.

"It was strictly a festival for high schools to come in and play at," says Williams, 77. "I remember it so vividly because we were fortunate enough to be chosen as one of three bands to play at the night concert. We were the first band in the state of Idaho to go to a final concert at that time."

Jazz at Lewiston High took off like wildfire after that, he says.

"Kids were just so excited. It was a way to teach kids not only about jazz music ... but a chance for them to hear and play all their arrangements. The music was contemporary, exciting and different."

Williams took students to the UI festival for about four years. Then its director left and the festival went downhill for awhile, Williams says.

But he and his students were noticed at that first festival by a judge who was director of music at the University of Nevada in Reno, the site of a leading jazz event in the nation at the time, the Reno International Jazz Festival. The judge invited them to perform there. Williams continued to take Lewiston students to Reno for more than a decade.

"There was so much incentive for kids to be in music because of the festival and other events."

A little encouragement led to big things.

Williams' music students played in the San Francisco St. Patrick's Day Parade several times. They represented Idaho at Richard Nixon's inaugural parade in 1973 and Jimmy Carter's in 1977. In 1974 his jazz band was chosen to tour Europe.

"What an education those kids got," he remembers with a smile.

Williams was born into music and education in Price, Utah, in 1925 as the son of a public school band director with a penchant for entering students in national contests.

While some fathers aim to have enough children for a basketball team, Eddy Williams' father raised a versatile quintet.

"Every one of us at very early ages were taught to play an instrument," Williams says of his four siblings. "I later learned the reason for this. When dad needed an oboe player and didn't have anyone else, he was successful at getting an oboe player or a bassoon player or a trumpet player."

Trumpet was Williams' specialty and after high school he took the instrument to enlist in the U.S. Air Force.

He was stationed in Spokane and assigned to play in a band. It was here he was introduced to jazz.

During the day the band played to the wards of a convalescent hospital. They played every night at United Service Organization (USO) functions, officers club dances and city functions like bond rallies.

"Everything was show tunes and jazz dances. For me it was such a tremendous experience. There were so many professional musicians. I was able to learn a lot from them."

After he was discharged, Williams says, he realized life was limited without an education. In Spokane, he had met professors from UI so he decided to enroll there.

He earned a master's degree in education and taught in Clarkston for five years. Then he left teaching to open a music store with his brother. A few years later, in 1964, Lewiston hired a band director from Chicago to take a position at Sacajawea Junior High School. The person never showed up and Williams was called to substitute.

"It turned into 20 years of teaching."

In 1968 he moved to Lewiston High School where he taught until 1981 when he took a job in Reno. He retired 10 years later.

Williams was gone when the UI jazz festival really took off in 1984 when Lionel Hampton paid a visit and vowed to return as long as he was able.

Williams is not surprised at the festival's current proportions.

"I'll tell you what the surprising thing is: Once kids learn to play jazz correctly, 100 percent would rather play in a jazz band than a rock band."

Since returning to Lewiston, he has attended the UI festival every year, not to see big name performers like Hampton and Freddy Cole, but to see the performances of the thousands of students who come to compete.

"That's the biggie for me. I get more out of that than I do the concerts.

"I can't emphasize enough what a tremendous festival it is. My only gripe is that the students have such huge expenses for transportation, meals, lodging and cost of tickets -- and it seems like the professional musicians get all the attention. I guess it's the fault of the media. After all, these kids spend all that time and money to get there, it's kind of a shame."

Attention would be a little more incentive for students to succeed. Regardless of that he believes jazz will continue to motivate young people.

"All you have to do is look at all the kids and bands that come into Moscow."