Robert Glasper and Ashley Kahn to Teach Miles Davis Course at NYU
Classes will focus on musicianship, cultural impact and more
04/05/16
By JazzTimes
Pianist and composer Robert Glasper and journalist Ashley Kahn will teach a course jointly on the music and legacy of Miles Davis this fall at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. The course, which will be open to a select number of undergraduates, will, according to a press release, “integrate a wide variety of musical styles, including jazz, rock, hip-hop, electronic, dance and neo-soul, to analyze Davis’s pioneering influence on more than six decades of music.”
Robert Glasper
The class marks Glasper’s first foray into teaching at the university level while Kahn is a visiting professor at Recorded Music and has been with the Institute since 2005. Both, says the release, “have significant connection with Miles Davis’ musical accomplishments—Kahn is author of the groundbreaking study Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, and Glasper is music supervisor for Miles Ahead, the recent feature-length biopic starring Don Cheadle as Miles Davis.
The seven-class course is divided into two parts: In the first, students will “complete focused readings, listening and viewing assignments that investigate the social, cultural, musical and business aspects of Miles’ monumental accomplishments. The second half focuses on musicianship, performance, composition and production with students completing in-class and out-of-class assignments under Glasper’s mentorship, deconstructing Miles’ compositional and studio approaches, and working collaboratively with fellow students to produce and refine original musical works,” the announcement says.
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