Six beats with keyboardist Isaiah Dobbins, the double neurobiology and jazz studies major who is improvising life as he goes.
The fingers on Isaiah Dobbins’ left hand run scales along his knee while he speaks, providing a silent bass line to his thoughts. I’ve asked him what motivates him, what gives him the energy and drive to pursue a double major, not to mention a slew of opportunities — including being just one of two students tapped to play in a special multigenerational eight-piece jazz band for the Swing into Spring celebration this April.
“I’ll be totally honest, I feel like these days I barely even understand myself,” he finally says, smiling. “I’m just kind of watching what motivates me, what speaks to me, and it’s like, ‘OK, I’m going this direction.’” He pauses for a beat, then adds, “I guess just seeing a lot of things in the world and wanting to change them, to make a difference.”
So far Dobbins’ inner compass is serving him well. He’s only wrapping up his junior year at UW–Madison, but he’s already done so much — starting with that double major in jazz studies and neurobiology. Those might sound like totally different fields, but Dobbins has long recognized the harmony between his two passions.
1. It all started with Gospel music.
Dobbins remembers being 6 years old and feeling mesmerized by the piano player at church. “My mom was like, ‘OK, let’s do some lessons,’” he says. When he got to high school, a teacher suggested he try jazz — there, he found freedom in expression. “When I was playing just strictly composed music, I felt like there was something more that I wanted to do,” he says. “And I saw how everything was interconnected. Learning about jazz helped with Gospel, then R&B, even Funk — all these different genres of music that I like.” In high school, he had the opportunity to join the Youth Big Band at the University of Michigan, where he learned how to solo in a way that uniquely articulated his vibe but also complemented the band. “The conductor really helped me push forward and expand what I would even think to do on the piano,” he says, “like using more range, or fewer notes instead of trying to fill the space because I was nervous, things like that.” It was also in high school that he became interested in neuroscience, and his senior project was on how different frequencies affect the brain. “In hindsight, it might not have been the best project, but it was a catalyst for my interest in how the brain and different things with music relate.”
2. At UW–Madison, Dobbins wanted to give his twin passions equal footing.
A double major just made sense. In addition to his studies, he was able to secure an undergraduate research assistant position in the lab of Department of Medicine Division of Geriatrics Professor Dr. Barbara Bendlin, a federally funded investigator doing work on Alzheimer’s, the gut microbiome, aging and the brain. Over at the Mead Witter School of Music, Dobbins especially appreciates the leadership of Director of Jazz Studies Professor Johannes Wallman, who tailors the jazz lessons to Dobbins’ personal goals and ambitions. Outside of classes he works, volunteers, and participates in student organizations. And he practices the piano — to the tune of four hours a night, often not starting until 11 p.m.
3. Dobbins has a keen interest in Alzheimer’s disease.
He works as a caregiver in memory care at an assisted living home, and in high school he worked as a server at a retirement home. “I feel like that has changed my perception of Alzheimer’s a lot,” he says. His experience working on a gut permeability study that focused on the connections between the microbiome and the brain led him to want to write next year’s senior thesis on the correlation between socioeconomic status — which influences access to nutrition — and Alzheimer’s disease. It’s also personal. “It’s definitely running through my family right now, affecting my grandparents for sure,” he says. “And I know that because of my family’s background, there is a more significant chance that it’s going to develop earlier and at a faster onset for my family on both sides.”
4. Earlier this spring, Dobbins got an email from premier jazz saxophonist Aruṇ Lūthrā.
Lūthrā needed a versatile keyboardist for a pop-up, eight-piece band that would perform one time only, live, for dancers taking part in visiting artist LaTasha Barnes’ Swing into Spring celebration. Dobbins had taken Lūthrā’s jazz histories class, where he’d expressed his background and broader musical interests. “He also performed with us for Big Band, where we did a lot of different styles and I had to do some Montuno patterns, some Afro-Cuban stuff,” says Dobbins. It was “a lot,” he says, laughing, but he welcomed the challenge. “I’d never played House music on piano before, and just trying to figure out what to do for a lot of those loops, or how to put electronic music into a live band, was a new experience. If we had to play blues in B Flat, that was like OK, we got that, we do that all the time. But it was a very wide range of things. Definitely outside my comfort zone. Cool, though.”
As for why Lūthrā selected Dobbins, it was more than just his skill and versatility.
“Mentoring and ‘learning on the bandstand’ are essential elements of the jazz/Black American Music tradition, and I strive to pay forward the generosity of the elders and ancestors who mentored and guided me,” Lūthrā says. “Bringing Isaiah onto the bandstand with me for the Swing Into Spring project was a way for me to do just that, and to support his growth as a promising young musician and an accomplished scholar.”
5. The rising senior has big plans for next year.
Science-wise, he’ll be writing that senior thesis on Alzheimer’s, continuing his volunteering, and starting some job shadowing. “Getting some experience working hands-on with patients doing caregiving, things like that,” he says. In terms of music, Dobbins was asked to play some solo piano arrangements in front of a live audience for an upcoming documentary about jazz legend Thelonious Monk. He also hopes to compose more himself. “That’s one of my goals for next year. Just getting the music that I’m thinking about out there more into the world.”
6. One final note, and it’s key.
Dobbins says one of the fundamental things that unites his passions is the idea that neither art nor science is, in and of itself, enough. “If there’s a new advancement in medical research but it’s not accessible to 90% of the population because they can’t afford it, then it’s not significant. If art talks about activism and even gets people to think about issues in the world, but then they go on about their daily lives and their actions are the exact same, nothing really changes,” he says. “Whether it’s music or science, this feeling of being uncomfortable, of putting in the work to actively change the systems in place that don’t work for everybody, that’s what makes all of this important.”
Maggie Ginsberg is the writer for the Division of the Arts at UW–Madison.