Berklee Press

Since 1957, Berklee Press has been the official publisher of music instruction books and videos based on Berklee College of Musics renowned teaching methods and curriculum. Written by respected Berklee faculty and alumni, as well as other music industry professionals, Berklee Press titles let you learn about the performance, business, technology, a... nd songwriting of music on your own turf and timetable. Berklee Press has been a publishing activity of Berklee College of Music since 1957, not long after the institutions first name change in 1954 from Schillinger House to Berklee School of Music. For some backstory about Berklee Press before my own arrival in 1998, I asked Lee Berk (Berklees president from 1979 to 2004) to share some memories. He graciously provided the following reminiscence. Lawrence Berkthe founder of Berklee, and my fatherwas a jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He acquired his craft skills with difficulty, when there was no organized system of education for jazz, which was the popular music of the time. He was heard to recall that fellow aspiring jazz musicians of his era had to resort to notating what they heard in recordings in order to study the compositional techniques they could use for their own musical needs. Little wonder, then, as Lawrence Berk organized his subsequent career as a jazz educator, that one of his early projects was to launch a publishing activity, initiated in 1957 with a series of jazz recordings and score sets for professional musicians and other educators. Called Jazz in the Classroom, these LP/score sets were tributes to acclaimed jazz composers such as Duke Ellington, Manny Albam, Oliver Nelson, Benny Golson, and others. Their music was performed at a high level by the accomplished students of the then-infant Berkleeoften musicians from the armed-service bands returned from the war who were studying under the G.I. Bill or talented area players who were also then students, such as jazz trumpeter Herb Pomeroy, pianist Ray Santisi, drummer Alan Dawson, and others ...Read More