The Abridged version:
- Sacramentan Bill Dendle will soon join the American Banjo Hall of Fame nearly 65 years after falling in love with the instrument.
- The core of his achievements focus on music education and innovation, and celebrate his work with the Teagarden Jazz Camp, a program of the Sacramento Jazz Education Foundation.
- He adheres to the “collaborative apprenticeship model” of teaching, in which students work as a team toward a common goal to build mutual understanding.
If the word “banjo” brings up mental reels of Kermit the Frog or San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, you don’t know the full range of the instrument.
That’s okay. Bill Dendle will educate you. It’s what he does.
Dendle, who lives in Sacramento’s Woodlake neighborhood, will soon be inducted into the American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame. He considers it evidence of a well-lived life. He is equally passionate about music and education. “The primary reason for (the honor),” he said, “is because of my work with the Jazz Education Foundation.”
The American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City honors six categories in its Hall of Fame. Dendle’s award in education and innovation celebrates his work with the Teagarden Jazz Camp, a program of the Sacramento Jazz Education Foundation. He served as director of the camp from 1999 to 2024, and he taught there for 10 years before that.
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Teagarden Jazz Camp enriches students and teachers
Jazz musicians aged 12 to 20 attend the Teagarden Camp for two one-week sessions every summer. Immersive meetings focus on nine instruments, culminating in a performance for family and friends. The camp is held at the Sly Park Environmental Education Center, just east of Placerville.
Dendle said instructors get as much from the camp as their students.
“I used to tell people, you know, in a week, you can’t teach a person much. But boy, you can inspire them.”
‘A magical place’
Devan Kortan was inspired. The Sacramento native plays banjo with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, a highly acclaimed jazz band based in New York City. The group specializes in jazz from the 1920s and 1930s.
Kortan’s introduction to banjo came at camp with Bill Dendle.
“The Teagarden Jazz Camp is a magical place. It imparts so many lessons that are applicable in and out of music. It challenges your left and right brain equally. You are asked to be creative and learn many songs but also to hone your technical abilities, be a valuable team member, and show up on time ready to work.”
Greg Sabin, another former student, learned from Dendle that music is a form of community.
“If you weren’t thinking about the audience and showing emotional intelligence in your performance, it could very well fall flat.”
Dendle uses ‘collaborative apprenticeship model’
The secret to such inspiration is Bill Dendle’s approach to education. It’s the “collaborative apprenticeship model,” inspired by Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, in which students work as a team toward a common goal to build mutual understanding. Experts are available to help only as needed.
“But the work of the learning is done by the learner,” Dendle said.
Before leading the camp, Dendle’s career in education centered on the same collaborative model. He taught and oversaw programs in English as a Second Language (ESL), pregnant and parenting teens, regional occupation programs, adult basic education and General Educational Development (GED). He also led education programs at the Honor Farm at the San Joaquin County Jail.
‘You can’t coerce learning’
Dendle’s body of work formed his vision as administrator of the Teagarden Jazz Camp.
“It’s about the importance of culture and climate,” he said, “and that the leadership creates it. In any business or any organization, the leader creates a culture. And together with the people that are there, you create a climate. And if it’s welcoming, if it’s safe, if it’s nurturing, wow, everything goes better for everybody. And that’s what I want.If I could, I would make every school be like that.
“You can’t coerce learning,” he added.
The focus on collaboration at Teagarden Camp, Dendle says, is what jazz is all about.
“It’s an analog for life. You’re dealing with other people. You have to fit what you’re doing to what they’re doing.”
Learning about more than music
The kids get it. They intuitively absorb the intent of the educational model. They comment on it. An example is the 12-year-old who stood near Dendle in the dinner line at the camp.
“And she said, ‘This isn’t really about music, is it?’ And I said, (whispering) ‘Don’t tell anybody.’”
Sabin is a believer. That’s why he now serves on the board of the Jazz Education Foundation. He converted his collaborative talent into performing and teaching improvisational comedy. He is also a financial planner.
“I don’t know who I would be without it. And without Bill‘s stewardship of that institution over so many years, I don’t know what the camp would be without him.”
As for Dendle’s beloved banjo, the instrument is not limited to Dixieland and Bluegrass. Banjo also has a history with soloists in classical music. YouTube offers a variety of banjo renditions of Bach, Telemann, Mozart and Pachelbel. One of Dendle’s favorites is “Liebestraum.”
Banjo grabbed him at 15 years old
Dendle, 79, was born in Camden, NJ, and moved to San Diego, where he grew up, at age 8. He studied Education at the University of California, San Diego, earning a master’s in Teaching and Learning in 1991. He moved to Sacramento in 1997 to start a life with his wife, singer Shelley Burns.
It wasn’t classical that first attracted Dendle. He was smitten by jazz at age 15, when a radio station played “Midnight in Moscow” by British Dixieland band Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.
“It flipped a switch in me. I had never really responded to music much before that.”
He studied banjo with another Sacramento musician who is also in the Hall of Fame. Don van Palta moved from Holland to Sacramento after World War II and played banjo at the first Shakey’s Pizza Parlor, which led to a nationwide trend of banjo and pizza.
In recent years, Dendle has been the role model. He already has in mind what he will say at the induction ceremony in Oklahoma City in October.
“The fact that the banjo has been a significant part of my life. It’s taken me places, and I’ve met people that I never would have. And I love playing. But the real core of my being is trying to somehow be helpful, to make the world a better place.”
Donna Apidone is a regular contributor, writing Coming of Age for Abridged.