J@LC Unveils Multimedia Jazz Appreciation Curriculum
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Jazz at Lincoln Center has unveiled a new multimedia jazz appreciation curriculum that explores basic concepts and major figures in jazz. Tailored for students in grades 4 through 9, J@LC Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis demonstrated the interactive lessons for invited guests and the press on Tuesday morning with students from William O’Shea Middle School 44 in Manhattan.
Marsalis, who wrote and narrated the curriculum, stressed that “culture is what defines a people, and one of the centerpieces of American culture is jazz. It should be taken seriously and taught to all of our students.” Marsalis said the curriculum works to “demystify jazz” for young people by drawing analogies to familiar topics (such as sports) and fulfills “the need for arts education in our schools.”
An out-of-breath Mayor Michael Bloomberg made an appearance at the assembly to present Marsalis and the school with a proclamation designating February 26, 2002 as Jazz Education Day in New York City. He congratulated Marsalis on a “great program” and recognized the “significance of jazz in our nation.”
J@LC Board Chair Lisa Schiff commented that the release of the curriculum represented a “huge step towards our ultimate goal…a meaningful presence [for jazz] in classrooms across the country.”
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Laura Johnson, J@LC Director of Education and Performance, then outlined the program’s specifics. She began her remarks with the announcement that the Office of Arts Education, part of the New York City Board of Education, had committed to a leadership purchase of a curriculum package for each one of its 41 district arts coordinators.
Delving into the specifics, Johnson explained that the finished curriculum, based on J@LC’s <mailto:J@LC’s> popular family concert series Jazz for Young People, “is something that can travel without us.”
Priced at $299.95, the package includes a 10-CD set, Teaching Guide, 30 Student Guides, and a video. Items are not available for individual sale. Thirty audio lessons integrate information on:
- the musical components of jazz, such as improvisation, form, and rhythm
- key historical figures and styles, such as Jelly Roll Morton, Dizzy Gillespie, bebop, and cool jazz
- instruments and instrumentation
- its history and relationship to 20th-century American history.
The curriculum was created in conjunction with Scholastic Inc. and Sandy Feldstein, PlayinTime Productions.
For each lesson, the class listens to the CDs featuring Marsalis’ narration and musical examples. (J@LC spent more than 100 hours in the studio, recording over 120 musical selections and examples). Student guides contain photos, bios, and listening charts that illustrate and reinforce the main concepts. Instructors are also provided with a Teaching Guide, CD-ROM, and video to supplement their lessons.
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J@LC began developing the project in 1998. After spending a year researching, planning, and conducting focus groups with music educators, J@LC developed six lessons and tested them in 13 pilot schools in New York, Florida, Iowa, and California during the 1999-2000 school year.
The undertaking was heavily supported by the Louis Armstrong Education Foundation, with additional underwriting by the Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation, Congress, Zena and Michael A. Wiener, and the Louis Calder Foundation.
Marsalis, clearly pleased with the project, noted, “Jazz at Lincoln Center’s ultimate goal is to see the whole of American public education transformed and to see the arts in America, specifically the musical arts, achieve the prominence they deserve in our educational curriculum.”