after graduation; her mother’s fam-
ily didn’t speak to her for seven
years afterward. Her father, drafted
by the Green Bay Packers and the
Edmonton Eskimos, chose the latter,
feeling that Canada would be a more
accepting place to raise his biracial
family. Both parents got doctorates
and teach at Northern Michigan
University; Melissa Walker graduated
from Brown University and her sis-
ters from Princeton and Yale.
Walker says her mother, Dr. Jean
Walker, who passed away last year,
“always stood up to anybody who
was espousing bigotry or hurting any-
body else; that was her life journey.
The idea of who has a right to sing a
song, who has a right to be on stage
and be seen, it was ingrained in us
very early on.”
Sixteen years later, Walker is
seeing the culmination of her efforts
with alums like Montclair’s Julian
Lee, a graduate of the Juilliard Jazz
“WE NEVER TURN
A STUDENT AWAY.
EVERY STUDENT HAS
A SONG IN [HER]
HEART.”
MELISSA WALKER
Institute who is now a professional
jazz musician in New York, and
Isaiah Thompson of West Orange,
soon to begin his master’s degree
there. Both are recipients of the
prestigious Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts Emerging Artists
award. Eighteen-year-old Matthew
Whitaker, the blind piano prodigy
from Hackensack who started with
JHK when he was seven and has
performed on The Ellen DeGeneres
Show and with Stevie Wonder and
Chick Corea, recently won the Herb
Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award
for 2019.
“We feed a lot of Jazz programs —
Oberlin, Berkeley, Manhattan School
of Music, Yale, Princeton, Howard,
NYU,” says Walker. “One hundred
percent of students at the Jazz House
in Montclair go on to college, and
afterward, they don’t just succeed in
music — they are becoming surgeons,
engineers, writers, teachers.
“And they keep coming back,”
she says. The Jazz House Alumni
All-Stars were among the perform-
ers at the Spring Gala. “I just love
seeing the alums!” Walker says.
“They’ve known each other for years,
even though some went to different
schools.
“Jazz House Kids was kind of like
their sport, their team. And they
want more.” ■
MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE MAY 2019
39