Milton Academy bands director honored
NEW YORK -- The crucial role that the Boston area plays in generating jazz talent was apparent Wednesday when the International Association for Jazz Education presented its $5,000 Educator of the Year award, sponsored by the Berklee School of Music, to the head of Milton Academy's jazz bands.
The director, Bob Sinicrope , launched the program in 1974 when as a young math teacher he convinced the school to let him teach its first jazz class. Today, his groups perform as far away as South Africa, where he works with jazz schools in poor townships.
Closer to home, he led a Milton group last week at an inaugural event for Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick. The governor, a Milton graduate whose father was a musician, was once a Sinicrope student -- though in math, not music.
Started this year, the award is named for one of Sinicrope's own teachers, clarinet and saxophone virtuoso John LaPorta , who taught at Berklee for more than 30 years.
A famous fact about LaPorta, Sinicrope says, is that when teaching with other musicians at the first jazz summer camps, LaPorta would always choose to work with the least experienced students, and always caught them up with the rest.
"He would take the lowest group, and he taught them to play with spirit and heart," Sinicrope says. "I learned from John that everyone deserves an opportunity."
Like LaPorta, Sinicrope has found satisfaction not just in playing his instrument, the bass, but in introducing students to the joy of the music.
"John had a quote, 'Follow your bliss,' " Sinicrope says. "In looking back, I was able to do that. Jazz really is my bliss, and I was able to follow it."
SIDDHARTHA MITTER 