With the first collegiate jazz ensemble offered in 1968, San Jose State became the pioneer Jazz Studies program within the California State University system. Reformed as Improvised Music Studies in 1991, SJSU became the first to treat improvisation as a cross-cultural study. Jazz is the heart of the program, the base. However, students have the opportunity to study improvisational forms from all over the world: non-Western and Western idioms from bebop to the avant-garde, from the classical traditions of India to the music and dance of Africa and the African Diaspora. The focus of the Improvised Music Studies program is four-fold: tradition, innovation, dialogue, and creativity.
