Kofi Gbolonyo, renowed jazz educator, to perform at Capilano University

For Kofi Gbolonyo, jazz, education, and African traditions go hand-in-hand.

The University of B.C. music professor is the co-director of Adanu Habobo — a group which plays the traditional music and dance from the Ewe people of West Africa — which will be performing at Capilano University on Oct. 25 at 8 p.m for Convergence II.

Adanu Habobo, which means "creative intelligence" or "creative wisdom", will be accompanied by the faculty and students in the Capilano jazz studies program for the show.

Jazz becoming more worldly, danceable

The theme of the concert is the future of the genre — which Gbolonyo said is increasingly drawing from other styles of music, in addition to its African roots.

"As we continue to make jazz more of a style in which rhythm is essential, and freedom to express yourself rhymically is essential, then we are actually paying homage to that root of Africa in jazz," he told Hot Air host Margaret Gallagher.

"But what I also see is that jazz allowing more other world musical traditions to infiltrate. The more jazz does that, the better jazz becomes as a world musical style."

Gbolonyo said it is also interesting to see how jazz is returning and spreading in the African continent , with the musicians there performing it in a style that is more comfortable for them: namely making it "more danceable."

Jazz as education

Equally as important to the fate of jazz are the future musicians and jazz educators — and that is something that Gobolonyo is heavily involved in as well.

He founded the Ghana School Project, an education program that teaches traditional and western music to Ghanaian youth.

The program is supported with financial contributions and educational materials from Capilano University, where Gobolonyo was previously artist-in-residence.

"I bring my village to the world, and then I bring the world to my village," said Gobolonyo, who also invites educators from around the world to teach courses to the students in Ghana during the summer.

"I believe that if in the next 20 years I'm able to actually influence the education of 20 individuals from my village, then we will have 20 Kofi's in 20 years to come," he said, referring to himself as an educator who has taught students all over the world.

"And if those people are also in a way giving back to Africa, Africa is progressing educationally."

Gobolonyo has seen the value of music education first hand — after elementary school he didn't go to high school, but went to a missionary school where he was trained as a teacher.

Traditional music had been part of his daily life, but then he discovered Western music at church. He went on to study jazz at a college in Ghana, and eventually come to the United States as a graduate student.

"If you take music out of my life...I can't imagine who and where I would be by now," he said.

"Music is what actually opened the gateway to the world.

To hear the full interview listen to the audio labelled: Musician and educator Kofi Gbolonyo explores the African roots, and African future, of jazz music