For anyone who admires musical culture in general, jazz in particular, the news was startling:

In a preliminary report, the Office of the Provost at Columbia College Chicago has recommended closing the school's Chicago Jazz Ensemble and Center for Black Music Research.

No other institution on the planet studies, archives, documents, disseminates, records and performs music from the vast diaspora of African-American culture as comprehensively as the Center for Black Music Research. And precious few ensembles in America regularly perform jazz orchestral works — historic and brand new — as brilliantly or innovatively as the Chicago Jazz Ensemble.

One hastens to note that the school's "Blueprint: Prioritization" document, as first reported by the Tribune on Sunday, offers recommendations that will be studied by faculty and staff before Columbia President Warrick Carter and college trustees announce their final decision in June.

Yet those who have followed the CBMR since it was founded at Columbia in 1983 and the CJE since its inception there in 1965 (and its revival in the 1990s, after a period of dormancy) already grieve for the possible losses.

"I think it would be an absolute disgrace," said David Baker, distinguished professor of music at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master.

"It would be a blot on the city itself."

Toni-Marie Montgomery, dean of Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music and a pianist who has performed with the CBMR's Black Music Repertory Ensemble, echoed the sentiment.

"There would be no single source of documentation for students, for lovers of music, for scholars, experts to obtain this information," she said, referring to the CBMR and its archival and performance resources.

"I feel we would be returning to the country's horrendous past, where this kind of knowledge and documentation of black musicians was unavailable. It would be like going backwards."

The "Blueprint: Prioritization" report lavishes high praise on the institutions it suggests eliminating.

"The Chicago Jazz Ensemble is recognized for extending contemporary art practice and illuminating the history of an essential American art form in compelling, engaged ways," says the report. The CBMR "has become an internationally renowned research center, supporting scholarship, publication, performances, recordings and conferences in service of the field," according to the report.

But the document cites declining student enrollment and other financial pressures that necessitate "the elimination of financial support for several worthy organizations."

Specifically, Columbia's enrollment has dropped from 12,500 in 2008 to slightly more than 11,000 last fall, said Anne Foley, the school's vice president for planning and compliance.

Yet, at the same time, music enrollment has shot up from about 180 majors in 2008 to about 650 majors now, said Richard Dunscomb, chairman of the music department.

Which poses an unavoidable question: Why penalize the music department for sagging enrollment elsewhere?

"The distinction may be between our instructional programs and our performance entities in music," said Foley. "Although there is some very good collaboration and relationship between those things (music classes and the CJE), they are different entities. … In terms of how we're organized, (the CJE) is not a unit within our music department."

Instead, both the CJE and the CBMR fall under the Office of Academic Research, according to the report. The author of "Blueprint: Prioritization," Louise Love, vice president of academic affairs and interim provost, points out that in the report she calls for the school to "increase resources" for the music department, per se.

But perhaps the CJE and CBMR are more deeply tied to Columbia's music programs than the school's flow chart indicates.

Considering the steady rise in music enrollment, isn't it entirely possible — perhaps even likely — that the prominence of the CJE and the CBMR helped draw music students to Columbia in the first place?

"I don't think we have any research on that. I don't think we have evidence one way or another," said Love.

Did Columbia try to find data to answer that question?

"No," said Love.

In fact, years before the report was issued inside Columbia, the school has been cutting funds to both organizations. The CBMR's annual budget, of about $500,000, has been reduced by about 70 percent over the last four years, and 56 percent in the past year alone, according to the CBMR. The CJE's budget, similarly in the mid-six figures, has been cut about 50 percent since August 2009, according to the CJE.

Nevertheless, the organizations have continued to produce exemplary work and, not surprisingly, emphatically protest their possible liquidation.

"I very strongly oppose the provost's recommendation and hope to see it reversed," said CBMR Executive Director Monica Hairston O'Connell in a statement to the Tribune. "Phasing out the CBMR would impoverish the experiences and unique point of view the college can offer its students."

Should Columbia College opt to shut down its own legacy, both the CJE and the CBMR could find more welcoming opportunities elsewhere.

"I would like to offer my support and, if appropriate, my help in finding a way to avert what would be a significant loss for the city's cultural landscape," said NU music dean Montgomery, in a statement to the Tribune.

Surely Northwestern and/or one or more of the other major universities in the Chicago area could join forces to save the CBMR. Similarly, it's not difficult to imagine DePaul University, which runs one of the most prominent jazz programs in the country, seeing value in becoming home to the CJE — particularly with artistic director Dana Hall, who now teaches at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, signed to join the DePaul faculty in the fall.

"I think there's a lot of logistical maneuvers in taking the ensemble up from one place and putting it up in another," said Hall.