> He's now a highly regarded, though eccentric, jazz teacher. John
> Miller, a Seattle jazz composer whose tunes I like, told me that
> Jerry figures out what a student needs to enhance their playing and
> works with them on that. Each student's course with Jerry is different.
It strikes me that this is what all the very best teachers (and not
just teachers of music) do. Any good teacher will surely have both a
library of pedagogical techniques, and a number of prepared ideas on
how to approach each of the topics likely to arise in a course of
study, but (s)he will at every point be choosing the topic to explore,
the approach and the technique to use according to the needs of the
students in their current class. Otherwise, that class might as well
be sitting in front of a video player!
Russ