One of the cultural initiative goals of The Jazz Bridge Project is to assist the Khabarovsk Territorial College for the Arts in developing their jazz program. When the delegation from Khabarovsk visited Portland last October, there were three jazz teaching resources they were looking for. We couldn’t locate them in Portland, and they went home empty-handed.
It turns out that two of them “First Jazz Performance” and “Standard of Excvellence Advanced Jazz Ensemble Method” were developed by trombonist player and University of Minnesota Director of Jazz Studies Dean Sorenson (also a fellow Eastman alum). When I approached Dean about how we might obtain these materials, he immediately said to contact his publisher Kjos. He was sure they would donate them. In this day and age, that kind of generosity is pretty rare.
Sure enough, my email was followed within days with a reply from Kjos saying they would be happy to donate a complete set of both these methods– with parts for some 22 instruments, free of any charge and best of luck to us.
I’m delighted that we will be able to bring these resources with us to Khabarovsk. I can’t wait to see what effect they will have on the budding young jazz musicians there.
D
Portland's Jazz Bridge Project 2011 
Dean Sorenson
November 3, 2011
Darrell — glad we could help, and I look forward to staying in touch. Please keep me posted!
Dean