Professor William Cole: "Fifty Years From Now They'll Be Talking About This Course"

A Yoruba proverb is both title and inspi- ration for a jazz composition currently being performed by William Cole, jazz musician, professor of music and target of the Dart- mouth Review. The proverb says: "One who does not know the meaning of the song of the palm bird complains that it is making a useless noise." Professor Cole thinks the words have taken on special meaning lately: in February the Review said participants in his class on American Music in the Oral Tradition were "bombarded by drumming arid numbed by [unintelligible wails."

"Of course it sounds meaningless to them/' Cole responds. "You have to take the class, and take it seriously, to see what this music is all about."

The man who has beqome one of the Re- view's favorite faculty targets is a full pro- fessor, having taught at Dartmouth for 14 years, nine of them with tenure. Cole, 50, holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, a Ph.D. in Af- rican-American music from Wesleyan Uni- versity, and an honorary master of arts from Dartmouth. Trained in the piano and cello, he has mastered wind instruments ranging from the Indian Nagaswarm to the Ghan- aian bamboo flute.

Author of books on John Coltrane and Miles Davis, he is working on a third on the his- tory of the oral tradition in jazz. His courses range from improvisational techniques to a seminar on John Coltrane. He has taught at Amherst, Berkeley, and Whitman Col- lege in Washington. He has hosted a jazz radio program, delivered lectures across the country and written a monthly column for Downßeat Magazine. He is the founder of, and a current performer in, two jazz im- provisational groups. He imported to Dart- mouth a concert and lecture series that brought such legendary jazz musicians as McCoy Tyner and Archie Shepp. His own music is contained in three record albums; a fourth is in the works.

Cole thinks that his very accomplishments may be the source of the Dartmouth Re- view's animosity toward him. "If I was me- diocre," he says, "I wouldn't be under such fire."

His teaching methods may be another reason for the attacks. The Review has crit- icized the professor for a lack of reading assignments and for failing to stick strictly to music in his oral traditions class. Cole responds that it is necessary to set the music of American Indians and Blacks in the con- text of their suffering. "That's where the meaning comes in," he says. As for his classroom technique, he agrees that it is possible for students to learn little. "They have to make an effort to learn something," says Cole. "The elitist kids here have never really had to struggle for anything. And you really have to struggle to actually learn something. They have to do that in my class. Spewing out facts in large globules— that's really not what knowledge is."

The son of a Pittsburgh dentist, Cole went to a grade school where black children com- posed three percent of the student body. His college and postgraduate education "took two simultaneous tracks," as he put it: formal musicological training, and in- tense hours of listening to jazz on records and in bars. Cole says he is also heavily influenced in his musical work by the late Nigerian composer Fela Sowande, a mem- ber of the Yoruba people who was the first African to become internationally known for his compositions. Sowande died last year, leaving behind a vast collection of rec- orded traditional African music. Cole is working with Sowande's widow to create a repository for the collection; Dartmouth is a strong possibility, he says.

It was Sowande who introduced the pro- fessor to the beliefs of the Nigerian peoples. Recently, Cole performed with his 18-year- old son Atticus and other musicians a group of improvisational pieces inspired by such Yoruba proverbs as "One man's hatred can- not alter another man's destiny," and "A scar is not as smooth as natural skin" ("Mental scars are the same way," the pro- fessor says pointedly.)

Cole thinks alumni have been misled by the Dartmouth Review but that President Freedman's faculty address went a long way toward setting them straight. "The alumni have been waiting for someone to take the leadership on this issue for some time," he says. (One of them is his wife, Sarah Sully 'Bl, who is a lecturer in the French and Italian Department.)

In fact, the professor thinks that alumni— and his oral tradition course—will rank among his greatest legacies. "When the class of 'BB graduates," he says, "50 years from now they'll be having drinks at the Dartmouth Club, and they'll be talking about this course."—

"The alumni have been waiting for someone to take the leadership on this issue for sometime," says Professor William Cole.