As does every few months or so, the topic of Julius Watkins has surfaced on the list. Someone (actually my junior HS band teacher from back in 1962) recently brought the dissertation" JULIUS WATKINS AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE JAZZ FRENCH HORN GENRE" <http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0012940/smith_p.pdf> to my attention. He sent me the link since the paper contains an extensive interview with yours truly reminiscing about JW. Unfortunately, this was my first glimpse of the interview transcript and I was alternately somewhat bemused and appalled at the amount of misquotation and invention that had found its way into the text and my biographical information (I am not now nor have I ever been the journalist it claims I am. If I were, I'm sure I'd have learned to write better by now). The entire work is riddled with unwarranted suppositions and speculations, typos, factual inaccuracies, wrong name spellings and a generally poor style of writing. The author also, in my opinion, fails to grasp the nature of what made his playing and the recordings he made so mind boggling and significant., though others may draw different conclusions.
Having said all of that, I strongly urge all who are interested in the man to read it; it does significantly add to the knowledge bank (even if you subtract all the bad information contained) on Julius. I respect all the time and effort that went into it and am glad to say I read every word; it just is a bit discouraging to think some readers will take it all as gospel truth and it is shocking, to me, to think that one can obtain a doctorate without the written portion of one's studies showing that the basics of scholarly research and writing have been attended to. I understand why many hornplayers feel compelled to obtain advanced degrees so that they can have ghost of a chance of landing a teaching job in a world where supporting oneself and dependents exclusively by playing is next to impossible (and only those who can are able to land teaching jobs without the D. Mus. or Ph. D.), but it is depressing to see results such as these. I don't mean this as an attack on the author nearly as much as an indictment of any system that accepts and supports such low standards. As I said, on balance, you really ought to take the time to check it out. Peace on earth, Peter Hirsch _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
