What We Do

Every academic year, YUJC organizes concerts showcasing professional artists, as well as masterclasses, lectures, jam sessions, and other events—all of which are free and open to the public. Notably, YUJC hosts the Underbrook Series every semester, and the Yale Jazz Festival every spring. Additionally, our members teach jazz history once a semester in Yale Splash and are piloting a lessons program to employ New Haven artists and benefit Yale and New Haven students. These programs demonstrate and develop the student and community demand for our advocacy efforts, which consist of meeting and negotiating with Yale administrators and making public press releases about the state of jazz at Yale. 

In addition to our own programming, YUJC advocates for Yale administrators to increase jazz curricular offerings on campus, lobbying for a jazz lessons program on par with the classical credited lessons program, credit for jazz combos (in order to make parity with credited classical ensembles), and a robust academic and performance-based jazz studies program.

Why We Do It

Jazz studies deserve a place in liberal arts education. Improvisation and creativity, open-mindedness and diversity, collaboration and communication, theoretical rigor and discipline. These are all tenets of jazz studies and advance a liberal arts education. We believe these values, and the presence of jazz music, enhance the musical ecosystem and experience at Yale and in New Haven. 

We also believe celebrating and providing the opportunity to study jazz at Yale are necessary steps towards racial and social justice. It is far past the time that we acknowledge the intellectual and artistic achievements and contributions of Black people to American culture and the world. Yale ought to follow its Ivy League peers and create a robust jazz studies certificate program in the performance and history of jazz. This program will enable Yale students to study Black music as they would any other academic discipline at Yale.

Every Yale student should have the opportunity to listen to and be inspired by jazz artists, learn about the historical context and aesthetics of jazz, engage with a vibrant community of like-minded musicians, and hone their individual voice. YUJC will always strive to make sure each student has access to such a jazz education; everything we do is towards this end.