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WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE PAYING BIG DIVIDENDS FOR COLLEGE-BOUND STUDENTS.

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� is week it starts in earnest — the questioning. You can’t escape it. It comes from your spouse, your kids, your parents — at the breakfast table, in the car, on the phone, via email: “What do you want for Christmas?” I don’t know. Really, I don’t. Surprise me. � at is not an acceptable answer. So there are follow-up questions. And yes, I know I could ask family members to make donations in my name to the many good causes around town, and we do that — I suggest the Community Foundation’s “Give 365,” if you need an idea — but everybody wants to see boxes under the tree on Christmas morning, too. But here’s the thing: It’s just stu� . And I’m fortunate in that I’m pretty set when it comes to stu� . I make a decent enough living that when I want something, I can usually just go buy it. I don’t mean cars or boats, but a sweater, a pair of boots, a new putter, a bottle of good whiskey — that stu� I just go get. Plus, I’m old and cranky, and I don’t want to wait around until December just so other people can go get that stu� for me. Besides, they might get the wrong whiskey. But then comes the holiday season — and the questioning — and I have to come up with something. So, I start thinking: What do I want? I look down and see that the old slip-ons I wear to muck around the house are shot. I put them on to go get the paper in the morning, to run the kid to school, to pop over to Home Depot on Saturday, whatever. I’ve had them for a long time and they are worn out. So I think, I’ll check out some new knock-around shoes online to see if I can � nd some I like and show the wife what I have in mind. I go to a few sites, click on some shoes, enlarge them, rotate them, etc. � en

I email my wife some URLs, so she can get an idea of what I’d like. So romantic. And now, the whole world knows what I like. I’m being relentlessly followed by shoes. Every website I visit features the shoes I looked at, even those stupid ones with the orange soles. � ey’re sitting in the right margin or above the headline, winking at me, dancing up and down, trying to tempt me to click on them. It doesn’t matter where I go — political sites, sports sites, memphis� yer.com — the shoes I looked at are there. Is the NSA behind this? I mean, if zappos.com has spyware this good, I can’t imagine what the U.S. government knows about me. Actually, I don’t think I want to know. But if the feds are feeling gi� y, I wear a size 10. Bruce VanWyngardenbrucev@memphis� yer.com

N E W S & O P I N I O N LETTERS - 4

THE FLY-BY - 6AT LARGE - 10POLITICS - 12

EDITORIAL - 14VIEWPOINT - 15

Cover Story - “� e Sound of Success” by Joe Boone - 16

S T E P P I N ’ O U TWE RECOMMEND - 20

MUSIC - 22AFTER DARK - 26

CALENDAR OF EVENTS - 34FOOD - 42FILM - 47

THE RANT - by Randy Haspel - 55C L A S S I F I E D S - 50

Featuring - � e Times crossword puzzle.

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OUR 1295TH ISSUE • 12.19.13COVER P. 16 -

THE SOUND OF SUCCESS

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Kenneth Crawford is packing his bags. He’s not singing the blues. But he is singing.Kenneth Crawford is packing his bags. He’s not singing the blues. But he is singing.K “I’m headed to the White House and singing on Saturday with my college choir,” Crawford says. He’s a student at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, Kchoir,” Crawford says. He’s a student at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, K

and his choir is headed to the White House in Washington, D.C., for the second time. Crawford is a graduate of the Soulsville Charter School in Memphis, and he is on a full-ride scholarship to Wiley College.

Crawford’s success is one story. But the truth is that there are many success stories emerging from the area’s school music programs. It’s nothing new, but it’s seldom noticed among the naysaying and the never-ending chorus of complaints and arguments about schools. � e importance of music education sometimes gets lost, as we celebrate rock and soul music on the marquee. But music education has deep roots in Memphis and remains a vibrant force for good. Music is alive and well in our schools — and is sending more kids to college than athletic scholarships.

It’s time to take note.

“I had two young ladies who started playing trumpet in the 10th grade,” says Ollie Liddell, director of bands at Central High School and previously at East High. “Most people start playing an instrument in the sixth grade. I worked really hard with them, and they were able to get a scholarship their senior year just upon their work. So it’s possible, even at that late age, to get a scholarship in band. But it depends on the child and what level of work ethic they have.”

Liddell knows this not only � rsthand but also second-generation.“My father was the director of bands at Jackson State for almost 20 years,” Liddell says.

“He retired in 2011. Without a band scholarship, he wouldn’t have been able to go to school. I didn’t come up from nothing. But he did. My dad went on a band scholarship.”

Liddell himself bene� ted from music education. “I would have been able to go to college on an academic scholarship, but I would not

have been able to stay on campus,” he says. “� en, midway through my sophomore year, I had a daughter and lost my academic scholarship. Without that band scholarship, I

WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC PROGRAMS ARE PAYING BIG DIVIDENDS FOR COLLEGE-BOUND STUDENTS.PAYING BIG DIVIDENDS FOR COLLEGE-BOUND STUDENTS.

{{ COVER STORY BY JOE BOONECOVER STORY BY JOE BOONE ⁄ PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTIN FOX BURKS ⁄ PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTIN FOX BURKS ⁄ }

Students perfoming in the Students perfoming in the 2013 Bandmasters Championship at Championship at

Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium

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wouldn’t have made it through college.”� is musical path to success is working all over Memphis for

lots of otherwise underserved kids. “If you look at [scholarship] availability, [music] is what’s

easiest,” Liddell says. “It takes time, e� ort, and work. But the money is out there, and band scholarships are readily available. I make a promise to every student: If they come to school and do what they are supposed to do, they can get a scholarship.

“It’s easier to get a band scholarship than a football or basketball scholarship,” Liddell says. “� ere are more scholarships o� ered per college program. Football in Division I only o� ers 70 or 80 scholarships. Basketball? Fi� een. In a band, you can have over 200 kids on scholarship, depending on the school’s program.

“One thing we do at Central is require all seniors to audition for scholarships,” Liddell says. “We set a goal. I did the same at East. Many of them are receiving a college education based on band scholarships.”

Historically, music has been a driving force for Memphis. � e blues are the city’s pedigree, its claim to fame. Memphis’ tourism industry is based on its musical history. People have been coming to Beale Street for music long before the NBA came to town. African Americans on their way out of the Delta created a musical culture that still draws visitors from all over the world. Now, music culture is creating opportunities for at-risk and underserved Memphians. In fact, music may be one of the best ways to address the city’s big-picture problems: poverty and a lack of education.

In November, the Stax Music Academy hosted the Berklee City Music Network Conference, which brought together nonpro� t music programs like the Stax Music Academy from all over the country. Administrators and teachers got together for networking and brainstorming at the Westin Hotel on Beale Street. � e speakers were no strangers to the problems facing America’s cities.

Sandra Bowie is the executive director for arts education at the National Urban Alliance. She developed scholarship paths for underserved kids at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts before taking her current job, located in Newark, New Jersey. She has been on the education front lines for decades and knows that there are capable, talented kids who can’t a� ord the next step in attaining the American dream.

“Colleges and universities cost so much money,” Bowie says. “We need programs like this to be connected to the colleges and universities. � e child’s role is to � nd in themselves their own capacity and build that and their discipline. But we don’t have a system for doing that. � ere are a lot of children who are losing their lives because they are undereducated. � ey become underemployed and overincarcerated. � is is a national crisis.”

Certainly, some aspects of the bene� ts of music education have been exaggerated: � e “Mozart E� ect” — making babies smarter by playing them classical music — has been oversold. But serious research abounds on the e� ects music has on the brain, even a� er childhood and adolescence and into adulthood.

A 2012 study in the Journal of Neuroscience found that “adults who received formal music instruction as children have more robust brainstem responses to sound than peers who never participated in music lessons. … Our results suggest that neural changes accompanying musical training during childhood are retained in adulthood.”

A 2013 study in Progressive Brain Research con� rmed the bene� ts of music education: “� e bene� cial e� ects of musical training are not limited to enhancement of musical skills, but extend to language skills. … Taken as a whole, these � ndings suggest that musical training can provide an e� ective developmental educational strategy for all

children.”Cognitive bene� ts aside, music education has made

a tremendous practical di� erence for many generations of Memphians and continues to provide a path for advancement not only in the private schools and charter academies but in our public schools as well.

“� is is a time of high-stakes accountability,” says Dru Davidson, the � ne arts adviser to the Shelby County Schools (SCS) system and former chair of arts education for Memphis City Schools (MCS). “We have 100 percent instruction in K through 5 in Shelby County Schools. Every child in a public school in the SCS receives music education. � ere are 100,000 kids served.”

In fact, it’s law in Tennessee, thanks to Title 49, Chapter 10, Part 6 of the annotated code. Formerly SB 2920, the bill was sponsored in 2008 by Memphis state senators Beverly Marrero and Ophelia Ford and reads: “� e course of instruction in all public schools for kindergarten through grade eight (K-8) shall include art and music education to help each student foster creative thinking, spatial learning, discipline, cra� smanship, and the intrinsic rewards of hard work.”

“� ere’s not much like it at the state level, especially for elementary schools,” Davidson says. “We’re not doing it because it’s the law but because it’s a great idea.”

Not every kid will succeed in college. But those who make it to that level, if only for a while, learn something about how to set goals for themselves. It’s a net positive. � e skills of collaboration and self-expression are essential to success at any level.

“Most of these kids are not going to play in orchestras for the rest of their lives,” says Carol Johnson, former superintendent of the Minneapolis, Memphis, and Boston school districts and a panelist at the Berklee City Music Conference. “But the athletes aren’t [going to be playing sports all their lives] either. Here is another pathway for them to learn something that is a lifelong joy.”

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Central High School band director Ollie Liddell with students

Central High School paid homage to New Orleans at the 2013 Bandmasters Championship.

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Johnson recalls an evening during her Memphis tenure when the bene� ts of music education revealed themselves to her � rsthand.

“We had an orchestra performance of Memphis City Schools students at the Cannon Center. � ere was one child who didn’t have a ride home. � is student was a ninth-grader from Frayser. His parents had not come to hear him perform. He played the cello. I said to him, ‘How did you get interested in the cello?’ He said, ‘I never knew what the cello was. I never knew about the orchestra. When I went to high school, one of my music teachers asked if I’d like to learn the cello. I just said yes. I can’t believe it. Here I am playing at the Cannon Center tonight.’”

“So when you think about it, it makes you want to cry. His parents didn’t even come. He didn’t have a ride home. His life chances are pretty di� cult to imagine. Nobody in his family had gone to college.

“We need to nurture the talents that people have, to engage them in positive ways. If we fail to do so, it’s a lost opportunity. It’s lost not in just the musical sense, but in whether they will be useful participants in the democracy. � ey are getting a college opportunity and getting doors opened to them. � is kid who was at the Cannon Center: What is the likelihood, growing up in Frayser, that he attends anything at the Cannon Center? It’s very low. His parents didn’t have discretionary income. � ey were intermittently homeless. What is it that keeps him grounded? He was very proud of playing the cello, that sense of accomplishment carries over.”

But music education o� ers more than anecdotal bene� ts. It’s one of the best values the district — and the city — has in terms of return on investment.

“MCS students earned $6.1 million in scholarships for music,” Davidson says of the last available annual � gures for the now-defunct district. “It’s about the return on investment — allocating the budget, getting instruments that work, maintaining them. It’s a lot less money spent than the scholarships [bring in].

“� e message is to develop 21st-century skills,” Davidson says. “Employers want people who are creative, innovative, and collaborative. We corner the market in creative skills. When kids are engaged in that, they will be one of the valuable people that employers want.”

Investment measures aside, Davidson is proud of the musical legacy of MCS and the work being done under SCS.

“Melrose is currently in a renaissance,” he says. “� ey are doing amazing work. Whitehaven has one of the top marching show bands in the country.”

Overton High School is the district’s o� cial Creative and Performing Arts Academy. Principal Brett Lawson is

himself a bene� ciary of musical education. He sees music and arts instruction as essential pedagogical tools.

“When you study something that deeply, it teaches you how to learn,” he says. “You become not just a musician but someone who can learn to do something really well. � at’s not automatic. You don’t come out of the womb knowing how to play the French horn. You have to work at it. You are hardwired to walk and talk, but the other things that people have to do to succeed in this world require e� ort. As a matter of fact, most things require e� ort. Our students are learning a skill at a very deep level. � at’s what I’m looking for, and it translates to scholarships later on.”

In 2011, 26 students from Overton High School were o� ered $591,810 in music and art scholarships. Sixty-four students received academic scholarships totalling more than $2.2 million. � e University of Memphis, for example, o� ered more than $1.2 million in music performance scholarships to more than 100 students last year.

A walk through the Overton campus is like getting baptized in the river. It’s profoundly inspiring to watch kids play together as an orchestra. We’re bombarded with musical noise all the time, but the sound of people playing together in real time and in real space has an immediate connection to our brains. To watch and listen to a performance is to be part of something.

And performing together is what Memphians need to learn to do more o� en.

“� ere’s a special thing that’s being put out from this campus,” says Justin Merrick, artistic and operations director for the Stax Music Academy. “� ese are music ambassadors who speak strongly and have a strong connection. � ey will be � nancial leaders as well and will be able to help build the communities of music for tomorrow.”

Memphis has problems, and we like to talk about them. In fact, problem analysis might be our civic pastime. But focusing on the negative eats away at us as people and as Memphians. � is is especially true when it comes to discussing education — so much so that it’s sometimes hard for Memphians to imagine something wonderful coming from their schools. But a closer look — and a listen — might convince you otherwise.

THE SOUND OF SUCCESSCONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

“Employers want people who

are creative, innovative, and collaborative. We corner the

market for creative skills.”