Kenneth Neil Slater (born July 31, 1931) is an American educator, composer, and pianist.[1][2][3] In 2008, he retired as professor emeritus.[i][4] He has composed over 80 works for jazz ensemble and has written for symphony, chamber groups, a cappellachoir, opera, and musical theatre.[5]
Career
Early years
Slater was born in July 1931 in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Beginning at age six, he learned piano from a friend of his parents. In 1952 he graduated from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania. Two years later he received a master's degree in composition from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Beginning in 1960, he took night classes for about two years at Teachers College, Columbia University, studying pedagogy, piano, and composition.
From 1954 to 1956, Slater served in the U.S. Army, spending most of his time with the 97th Army Band at Fort Sill[6] as a pianist but also playing French horn and valve trombone.[5] He backed guest stars in shows produced by Daniel Melnick of the Music and Entertainment Section of Special Services. One such show featured vocalist Peggy King, who entertained the troops at Fort Sill in 1956.[ii][iii] Slater also directed a weekly television show from Fort Sill. Gary McFarland was among the musicians.[7]
Teaching and composing
Neil Slater (1980)
Slater's first teaching job, from 1956 to about 1960, was with the Mount Vernon City Schools, where he traveled to a different school each day of the week, covering five schools, to introduce elementary school students to their first instruments. Jazz drummer Alvin Queen, when he was in elementary school, started studying drums with Slater, who, at the time, taught all the band instruments.[iv][v] In 1965 he co-founded the Westchester Stage Band Clinics.[vi]
In 1968, he became Director of Bands at Mamaroneck High School.[vii] Two years later he joined the music faculty at the University of Bridgeport. In 1970, he was appointed Slater as Assistant Professor of Music with the Jazz and Composition Faculty, Department of Music, College of Education.[viii] Bridgeport's expansion in jazz was influenced in part by a new emphasis placed on jazz curriculum at the National Association for Music Education conference[viii] that was held March 1970 in Chicago. Slater founded the jazz program in 1971 at the University of Bridgeport. For 11 years, Slater directed the University of Bridgeport Jazz Ensemble. He also served as coordinator of UB's Jazz Studio Program. He hired Bill Finegan to teach composing and arranging and Finnegan's wife Rosemary to teach singing. Slater also hired Sal Salvador, Art Davis, Randy Jones. The UB Jazz Ensemble performed with Bill Watrous, Gerry Mulligan, and Chet Baker.
He frequently performed as a featured guest piano soloist with other college jazz ensembles. In one instance, Slater was a guest pianist at the Memphis State University Jazz Week '77.[x]
From 1981 to 2008, Slater was Chair of Jazz Studies and director of the One O'Clock Lab Band at the University of North Texas College of Music.[xi] In 1946, North Texas became the first college to offer a degree in jazz studies.[8][9] Slater was the first to head the program whose role as a composer and arranger represented a significant part of his career. Slater is credited for having emphasized small jazz combos. In 1982, he established the College of Music Jazz Lecture Series. In 1983, he started the Master of Music with a Major in Jazz Studies.[10][11] In 1994, with funding from the school's college of business, he established the artist-in-residence series. He also integrated jazz studies classes with the lab band experience.[2][12] Under Slater's direction, the One O'Clock band made 29 studio albums, six live recordings, and one compilation commemorating 50 years of jazz at North Texas. Slater directed the band on tours throughout the world to Pori Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, Antibes Jazz Festival, and the Molde Jazz Festival.
King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej, which lasted four hours, and sat in with the band. The band's performance marked a 37-year reunion. In 1967, the One O'Clock band performed at a White House State Dinner hosted by President Lyndon Johnson for the king and queen of Thailand.[xii] During the performance, Duke Ellington sat-in with the band, playing "Take the A Train".[xiii][13]
While in New York City, he maintained an active role as a composer, arranger, pianist, and educator. He was active in big bands, jazz combos, andstudio work ranging for jazz, R&B, pop, and jingles. In the 1970s, Slater arranged choral works by John Denver and Natalie Cole. He was hired by MCA to consult, compose, and arrange. His work included choral arrangements of Moody Blues hits. In 1972, Warner Bros. contracted Slater as a consultant to compose and arrange.[14] His choral arrangements include "Theme from Summer of '42" and "Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon".
Awards and honors
Slater was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement on an Instrumental for his arrangement of "Values," which he also composed. "Values" was on the album Lab 91 performed by the One O'Clock band directed and co-produced by Slater.
Slater is also a two-time Grammy nominee participant. The first was in 1989 for a work by Mike Bogle who was nominated for Best Arrangement on an Instrumental for his arrangement "Got a Match? by Chick Corea – on Lab '89, performed by the One O'Clock – directed and co-produced by Slater. The second was in 2009 for contributing two works, "Another Other" and "Time Sensitive" – both composed and arranged by Slater – on Lab 2009, which, as an album, received a Grammy nomination for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.
U.S. News & World Report ranked the North Texas jazz studies program as the best in the country every year from 1994, when it began ranking graduate jazz programs, to 1997, when it retired the category.[15][16]
^"Legends of Jazz," by Ellen Rossetti (born 1978), North Texan (UNT alumni magazine), Vol. 58, N° 3, Fall 2008, pps. 16–19; ISSN0468-6659 (retrieved August 26, 2016, viaissuu)
^ abLegacy: Neil Slater at North Texas (CD), Liner notes (booklet insert), by Craig Marshall + 40 former students, North Texas Jazz (2017); OCLC990281196
This historic article was posted online April 2, 2016, by Steve Cerra, at JazzProfiles, the blog of Steven Anthony Cerra, EdD (retired), Santa Ana, California at jazzprofiles.blogspot.com, April 2, 2016; with the article, Cerra also posted the cover a 2015 CD/DVD release of the 2006 documentary, This Is Gary McFarland (OCLC905239654), a film by Kristian Paul St. Clair (born 1972) (retrieved August 19, 2016)
^Jazz Educated, Man; A Sound Foundation, by Philip Allen Scott (1927–1992), American International Publishers, Washington, D.C. (1973), pps. 19–20 (North Texas), 117–118 (Eastman); OCLC624548LCCN73-159620
^Higher Education Data Service Data – Special Report, 2010-11, National Association of Schools of Music Note: For more than 20 years, North Texas Music enrollment has tracked closely to that of Indiana. Institutions that include Berklee, Juilliard, and Manhattan School of Music are not among the 627 NASM members. One non-NASM music school has a student enrollment larger than North Texas – Berklee.
^Kelderman, Eric (8 August 2008). "Jazz Leader Helps a Band Take Giant Steps". Chronicle of Higher Education. 54 (48): A6. OCLC424738027. ProQuest214643424.
^"TV's Peggy King to Perform Here," The Cannoneer (official weekly newspaper of Fort Sill), Vol. 13, No. 2, January 19, 1956 (front page)
^"Perky Peggy King Ends Two Day Visit," The Cannoneer (official weekly newspaper of Fort Sill), Vol. 13, No. 3, January 26, 1956, pg. 2
