Dr. Brian de Lima is a Professor of Music at Centennial College and developer of a proposed new joint program with University of Toronto Scarborough in Music Business and Technology. He currently teaches the course World Music, which utilizes the study of ethnomusicology, to see where music comes from and why it is the way it is. He says, “It could be Britney Spears or Justin Bieber, we really dissect it and see that it’s not Western music and the influences come from various parts of the world.” He also teaches the course The Art of Performance, which he says is probably one of the students’ favourite courses. “They get to come into that course and perform ensembles every week and just play for their peers and receive feedback,” he says. Experiential learning is something Brian prioritizes in his courses. “In the program, we’re trying to get the students to do as much hands-on as possible… we do music, we don’t sit around and write essays all day.”
Born in Africa and raised in a household with a father who was a visual artist and jazz guitarist, Brian was surrounded by creativity. He says, “[My dad] was already a jazz guitarist in Africa playing with African musicians. When we came to Canada, he noticed a totally different way of playing jazz.” When Brian began taking piano lessons, he started with classical but his dad found him someone that would change the way he played from that point on. “He found me an African American jazz teacher and it ended up being Oscar Peterson’s neighbour who also studied with the same teacher as Oscar Peterson, which is his sister Daisy Peterson. So, I started with a really old-school way of learning jazz, which is the Blues and Boogie Woogie, and I did this for seventeen years and got a full scholarship to Humber College for jazz,” he says.
After a trip to New York, Brian discovered some obvious differences in jazz, which is what ignited his research. He says, “When I went away to New York, I noticed everything I was learning at Humber College, and even just the ecosystem of jazz around Ontario and Canada, was so different. The way they spoke jazz, which is how they play their instruments and the language, was so different, but very similar to the way I was originally taught by the very first piano teacher I had that was African American. [At Humber College] we had all White teachers trying to teach jazz, which is a Black art form.” It’s important to note that race is involved in this, as Brian says, “[Jazz is] African music initially, which then turned into African American music. But that’s not to say that White people can’t play [jazz], I definitely think they can, it’s just they have to be in that environment.”
After this discovery, he saved up money to live in New York for a couple of years where he studied with Barry Harris. “It was great studying with him for close to twenty-five years on and off as much as I could.” With the realization that the language surrounding jazz is not consistent, Brian delved into this topic more. He says, “When I came back here and I realized, okay they are still playing this way in Canada, but yet they don’t play that way in the States, especially New York, I decided to do my Masters and then my PhD. My dissertation was a big study on how the jazz language was learned by African Americans in the States and how it was learned here by musicians in Canada, primarily in the GTA.”
What Brian ended up finding is quite interesting and reflected his observations in New York. He discovered that over 90% of all jazz teachers in the GTA who are considered experts, have close to zero background knowledge on how players in the States learned jazz. He says, “Players in the States learned by going to church and playing in the band. They learned Gospel music and did a lot of things that were indicative of African American environments. They had house parties where they’d play throughout the night, and it wasn’t like that here [in Canada].”
After this, he went on to interview almost every jazz teacher in Ontario who were all very honest in saying that they didn’t learn in similar ways that teachers in the States did. He says, “Teachers in the States all learned how to tap dance when they were younger; they danced with the music, or they did other art forms, so it was all integrated.” He continues, “I started realizing we’re not learning jazz and we’re definitely not playing jazz in the same way, so I decided to then write that study and it got some good accolades, mainly from people reaching out around the world.”
One of the accolades he received was from Dr. Raphael Price, Director of the Detroit Jazz Philharmonic. Dr. Price read Brian’s work and invited him to Detroit to do a residence with the Jazz Philharmonics to talk about his research and host a workshop with students and faculty. Unfortunately, this was cancelled due to COVID-19, but Brian says it is an honour.
Brian’s dissertation took into consideration his life growing up and everything he learned since then. He says, “Me writing that document for my dissertation solidifies what I learned from [Barry Harris] and what I learned from the other players around the States who learned in such a manner. I just wanted to bring it to the forefront and let our younger generation hear it, as well as let our older generation realize, I don’t think we’re doing this correctly.”
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By: Alexandra Few, Communications - Professional Writing Student