[Dixielandjazz] Jazz For Kids

[Stephen G Barbone]

Here's how one guy does it when explaining and playing jazz for kids.  
Any Dixieland Band can use this type of approach, but also stay within  
the confines of OKOM. Main point I would make is that bands like mine  
don't get hung up tying to teach kids about the detailed history of  
jazz, but give them a few pointers about what the music is, play it,  
and get them involved. Works for us.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


October 2, 2008 - Santa Inez Valley Journal- By Margo Kline, Staff  
Writer

JAZZ FOR KIDS

Jazz luminaries Stix Hooper and Bobby Rodriguez, fronting an ensemble  
of professional instrumentalists, opened the ears and minds of Santa  
Ynez Valley students Sept. 25 at Solvang School.
Musicians deliver jazz to kids

More than 800 kids from local schools filled the bleachers and floor  
of the school’s gym as Rodriguez, Hooper and the band took them  
through the various forms of jazz. The students represented 11 area  
schools, grades three through twelve.

The jazz professionals were in Solvang for the second annual Jazz  
Festival, and many of the students had heard Rodriguez during last  
year’s inaugural jazz fest. Hooper, the drummer with the original Jazz  
Crusaders, took the mike first to welcome the students, urging them to  
“sit back and relax and listen and enjoy.” Hooper also reminded the  
kids, “Jazz is American. It was born right here in America, and it has  
gone out all over the world.”

Then on came trumpeter Rodriguez, who guided the students through the  
categories of jazz, naming each one and exhorting his audience to yell  
the words back to him. After each category was named, Rodriguez led  
the band in a sample of the music.

“Jazz is different, it keeps changing all the time,” he told the kids,  
and the band struck up “When the Saints Go Marching In.” What kind of  
music is this?” he asked. “Dixieland!” The youngsters chanted back in  
unison: “Dixieland!” Next, Rodriguez gave a sample of the blues,  
blowing the trumpet and singing about his roots in East L.A. Rodriguez  
told the kids in a mournful tone, “The blues are meant to express  
sorrow, when you feel deeply in your heart, like when you’ve forgotten  
to do your homework.”

He turned serious for a description of how he became a trumpeter while  
growing up in East L.A.  “When I was eight years old, I saw a guy  
playing the trumpet on TV,” Rodriguez reminisced. “I told my mom that  
was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And she said ‘No! “I  
kept asking her, ‘Can I play the trumpet?’ and she would say ‘No!’  
“Then, when I was ten years old, I started taking out the trash, every  
day. When I asked her again, ‘Now can I play the trumpet?’ she said,  
‘Oh, okay. You’d probably do it anyway.’”

Rodriguez also stressed his educational achievements, attending  
college and earning first a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s  
degree. He has taught jazz at UCLA, USC and other institutions of  
higher learning.  “And finally,” he boomed, “after 35 years, I earned  
my doctorate!”

The lesson of his achievements, he said, is: “Don’t give up on your  
dreams. If Bobby Rodriguez can make it, so can you.”

Then he returned to the subject at hand, the varieties of jazz. The  
third category was 1940s swing, and several students sitting on the  
floor started to do a version of the Wave, but teachers cautioned them  
not to. The band played “Sing, Sing, Sing” and Rodriguez then  
demonstrated the art of improvisation, blowing a standard “Jingle  
Bells” and embroidering on it to show swing’s capacity to nurture  
originality.

Continuing his ode to the broad scope of jazz, Rodriguez began  
scatting, nonsense syllables that had the kids laughing. After a long  
string of scatting, he urged the kids to try it and they gave it their  
best shot.

That, he explained, is bebop, and then he played Charlie “Bird”  
Parker’s “Scrapple from the Apple.” By now, the audience was  
pulsating, the kids roaring their approval.

Finally, Rodriguez handed out “percussion instruments” – mostly  
maracas – to a handful of youngsters and began the introduction to  
Latin jazz. This is the focus of various ensembles which Rodriguez  
leads in gigs and on recordings. He and the band played Frank Foster’s  
“Shiny Stockings” while the “percussionists” formed a conga line and  
wound their way through the audience.

A highlight of the hour-long concert was the introduction of Jae Eun  
Chang, 15, playing the piano solo which won first place in the Solvang  
Jazz Festival competition for young jazz artists. She is a student at  
Santa Ynez Valley Union High School.
The Solvang Jazz Festival’s professionals have the stated aim of  
teaching young musicians the art of jazz, and Rodriguez, Hooper and  
the band members stayed after the concert to conduct master classes.