I don't remember how I found H. Johnson, but soon I was running home on Saturday nights to sit by the radio and listen to him. H. Johnson has a Jazz Classics radio program that comes on WABE 90.1 from 9PM until 2AM (EST). I would dim the lights, burn some incense, light some candles, and sip red wine. Or I would have coffee and create as I was inspired with watercolors and oil pastels.
H. Johnson takes the time to educate jazz newbies on the music he plays and does a mini concert at midnight spotlighting a particular artist. Listening to H (you can listen online here) allows for a classic experience in the comfort of your own home - no cover charge and comfy chairs with your personal choice of refreshment.
Yeah, sometimes I feel like a spinster cat-lady when I tell my friends I got to get home to sit by the radio, but I enjoy that time so much. I don't have to worry about parking in downtown Atlanta or Little Five Points at night alone. I don't have to worry about a two drink minimum – nor driving while intoxicated. I don't have to wear uncomfortable clothes and high heeled strappy sandals. And I love my Saturday nights with H.
But just for the record – I welcome anyone who wants to just chill to join me by the radio.
I took a look at the Smithsonian's website for ideas on celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month and scanned the section dedicated to suggestions for parents. None of them seemed unreasonable – they were all convenient and relatively inexpensive. But one of them surprised me – take your child to a local night club, laws permitting. What? Okay, maybe they were thinking of your teenage-almost-out-of-the-house child or maybe there are night clubs that I am unaware of that don't serve alcohol. Anyway, that unnerved me somewhat and I got to thinking about my ideal preschool classroom or what I would do for my children.
Instead of taking my child to a night club, I would create a drama or imaginary play center that was equipped for them to make their own kid-driven night club. As a teacher, my preferred age group is 3-4 so I am imagining my jazz curriculum through that lens.
Media: YouTube.com has several free videos of concert clips. Pick the best ones and let them play on a loop (like the video playlist below). In my situation, I would have them playing on my laptop. Those of you more technically savvy can come up with better child-proof ways to manage this. PBS also has wonderful DVDs of concerts that you can be assured are quality and child-friendly. And of course you can set a fun playlist of songs and have it play on your iPod/stereo/shelf system.
Costumes: Anything that children like to dress up in works here – particularly for 3-4 year olds – but take a look at some old photos and set aside some wigs, a Billie Holiday inspired gardenia for the hair, old sequined dresses, and boas for dress up. Don't forget old suit jackets, a porkpie hat, and maybe a bowtie for the fellas. Make it fit for the artists you are introducing or for the posters you use as your décor.
Instruments: Depending on your set up and children's development levels, these can be something plastic or instruments that the child is currently practicing. But I recommend keyboards, strings, and percussion instruments (wind instruments seem fun and the sax is a common jazz axe, but you create a sanitation issue with toys designed for the mouth – don't get so excited that you forget that!).
Ambiance: Your guests need somewhere to sit and there is probably a two drink minimum for the nightclub themed play center so make sure you have a table and chairs along with the necessary kitchen supplies to serve imaginary coffee and juice with the plastic vegetables and that lump of rubber scrambled eggs. Don't forget that your wait staff may need costumes as well – aprons should do along with a notepad to take orders.
Performance: It is ideal to create an area where the audience focuses on the performance at the club. Either make this the place where the instruments are stored or where the media is set up. If you use instruments, the children can do their own set. Otherwise they can enjoy each other and the concert going on by the acclaimed artists you've selected as part of your media.
Décor: You'll need a candle on the table – depending on your children, the battery operated candles or luminaries should work well. If not, there's always the plastic vase with a synthetic flower for a centerpiece. You need posters of Jazz greats or Jazzy art – ideally matching up with the ones from your media selection. And of course, if your children are the ones putting on the shows, you must take photos of them to hang on the walls. If you have the option, go ahead and make the center darker – draw the shades on a nearby window or close off the area in a corner with no windows.
Have fun with it and your children will, too. Don't only observe but play with them as well so that you can educate them where they are most interested.
A lot of picture books about Jazz are rhythmic in prose so these are best read to your children. Many of these titles also have audio components, in some cases along with the book, so use that in conjunction when introducing little ones to Jazz (and poetry).
Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa
- Andrea Davis Pinkney
Jazz
- Walter Dean Myers
Jazz on a Saturday Night
- Leo & Diane Dillon
Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane
- Carole Boston Weatherford
Charlie Parker Played Be Bop
- Christopher Raschka
Bebop Express
- H. L. Panahi
The Jazz Fly
- Matthew Gollub
This Jazz Man
- Karen Ehrhardt
Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra
Andy Blackman Hurwitz is an award winning author of a series of children's books called Baby Loves Jazz. He has several other projects but because it's Jazz-oetry Month (Jazz Appreciation Month + National Poetry Month = Jazz-oetry Month) I am focusing here on the board books in the Baby Loves Jazz series. Hurwitz has an extensive background in the music industry and is self-proclaimed the best daddy in the world.
There are CDs that provide supplemental lessons with each book that not only babies will enjoy but they aren't unbearable for adults. The books are available at Amazon.com for purchase. You can sample some of the CDs and preview some of the books from Hurwitz's website.
There are several compilations of music by Jazz greats that are varied interpretations of popular and standard children's songs that can be effective tools for a Jazz curriculum. For example, Ella Fitzgerald started out singing children's songs, and playing her music is an ideal segue to educate children about her contributions to Jazz.
My favorite (second to Ella's Playhouse, of course) is the Baby Loves Jazz series.
Although the posts this month refer to Jazz-oetry Month (Jazz Appreciation Month + National Poetry Month = Jazz-oetry Month), I would be remiss to ignore the similarities of Hip-Hop to Poetry.
I don't like Hip-Hop. It's not an affront to Hip-Hop - I just prefer other styles of music. But as an instructor, future parent, and advocate for children, I cannot ignore Hip-Hop. So, to that end, I recommend two books to enhance the education of Poetry this month for children. They can both be purchased at Amazon.com and have accompanying CDs.
Transition your children from lunch (or whichever previous activity) to naptime to the sounds of accomplished Jazz vocalists and musicians. I'm talking about ballads and love songs and torch songs – not scatting, BeBop, or acid jazz. Check out my suggested playlist below. The albums suggested are generally soothing in their entirety – however, I have also suggested the best tracks.
You probably could find several compliations of Jazz lullabys that are marketed for parents who don't know much about Jazz but many of the ones I find don't have a real Jazz sound or aren't performed by known Jazz artists. Those lullaby compliations may guarantee you tracks with child-safe lyrics but you lose authenticity. I believe you can find all of these on Amazon.com and iTunes.
Jane Monheit: Come Dream with Me
Best Tracks:
Hit the Road to Dreamland
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong: Ella and Louis
Best Tracks:
April In Paris
Autumn in New York
Stars Fell on Alabama
Ella Fitzgerald: Love Songs – The Best of the Verve Songbooks
Butterfly in the sky/I can go twice as high/Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow/I can go anywhere/Friends to know, and ways to grow, a reading rainbow/I can be anything/Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow…a reading rainbow
O.M.G. that was my favorite show and I can still hear the music to the theme song (quoted above). You should hear me sing it! Or maybe it's better that you aren't tortured by my lack of talent.
I used Reading Rainbow as my New York Times Best Seller List – although I don't recall buying many of the books because most of them were picture books and I was reading chapter books and young adult titles. However, the end part of the show had children doing brief reviews of wonderful books and I wrote the titles down as books to check out. The middle of the show involved a wonderfully told story, narrated by a celebrity and was my favorite part. I literally had butterflies in my stomach from the anticipation of the reading of the book and being able to see the pictures on screen – sometimes animated. I remember one about a crocodile in the bayou that had songs and frogs croaking.
Reading Rainbow is no longer on the air (1983-2006) but the good feeling from a show centered entirely on books and reading and storytelling still registers in my mind. It makes me want to curl up in a ball and read a book borrowed from the library – the hardback ones that smell like moldy old pages.
Zora Neale Hurston called it "telling lies" in her novels – based on her Florida research. Daddy called it telling jokes. I call it storytelling.
Annually on Mother's Day we would go back to Daddy's hometown of Corinth, Mississippi for Mother's Day. After church we'd change clothes and Daddy would tell stories about elderly women who couldn't hear well, students who couldn't spell well, and other light-hearted fun times that didn't really happen quite the way the story proclaimed. And everybody would laugh. Daddy and his baby brother had wide grins, deep voices, and high pitched laughs. There were some guffaws from my cousins, mama's wide-toothed open-mouthed laugh that I inherited, and Auntie's famous laugh with the slow squeals that could be heard a mile away. Hands clapped, knees were slapped, and tears from laughter flowed at the stories.
Daddy was a storyteller and told similar stories around the table after Sunday dinners with church members. They looked at me as if I was the most blessed child in the world to have a father like him. The reactions to Daddy's storytelling made an impression on me because it was a skill that was valued highly. Despite all the hardships, known and unknown, I endured in my childhood; everyone felt I was blessed to have a father like him. Now, granted they felt he was the whole package, but it was while he was making people laugh with his stories that they expressed the feeling.
I am a storyteller as well. I love dramatizing a story, creating the buildup, and giving great details that end in howling laughter for me and the listener. The details don't have to be completely accurate – just present. And you never, ever, go back and correct yourself in your story. If you are doing a great job the listener is there with you, in their mind, and any interruption forces them to draw a new picture in their minds and lose track of the story. My storytelling is similar to Daddy's storytelling.
Parents, you have potential storytellers in your home and they will start telling stories the way you tell them. One of my students re-told Robert Munsch's The Paper Bag Princess with a huge focus on the big knocker. Another storyteller recently told a wonderful story about a little boy having lunch that started with the famous line, "Once upon a time," as so many young storytellers use. If you are not a storyteller but you have little storytellers, then read stories to them. Get a variety of stories so that they can begin finding their own voice (not many stories begin with "Once upon a time" in everyday life). Take them to hear storytellers at the library and museums. And of course, remember their own stories and beg your little storyteller to tell you their best original stories over and over and over again.
I will never forget the first time I went to the public library.
Mommy was very excited when I started Kindergarten and we had weekly trips to the school library. She took one look at the book I selected and laughed. I told her that I'd already read it during our hour-long visit and she laughed again. "Why did you choose this book?" she asked me. She returned it to my backpack with instructions to select a more challenging book next time.
The next week she wanted to see my book. This time there was no laughter. "Gina, you are picking books that are too easy. I want you reading books that have more pages and take you longer than an hour to read."
A week later, her disapproval over the book I selected was much more intense. I was reprimanded for choosing the easy picture book and my explanation was met with a drop of mercy. "Mommy," I whined, "I picked the fattest book on the table." We were assigned tables and there were five of us to a table, five books to a table, and that's how we selected our books. My new instructions were to ask the librarian or my teacher to allow me to choose a book from the shelves rather than the easy books on the table.
Finally, I brought home another picture book and the response of the librarian to my request to seek out a more challenging book, which was simply, "No," elicited a look of disbelief on Mommy's face. Immediately we drove to the Whitehaven Public Library.
I walked in the doors of that library and my jaw dropped. I had not ever seen so many books in all my 6 years! (My friends from Memphis – please, remember this was 1982 and my first ever library trip. The Whitehaven Public Library is probably about 600 square feet of limited resources – at least it was around 1994 when I last visited. Well, not really but it's smaller than any other library I've visited since 1990.)
After what felt like hours of waiting to get my library card, I went to the children's section and was just overwhelmed. Mommy suggested that I start with authors who have series so that I can one, figure out my favorite authors and two, know what my next book would be when I went to the library. That advice took me through many summers of reading by an open window with a cool breeze filling the white sheers like a sail and eating granny smith apples.
Thank you Mommy for putting so much interest in my reading abilities and for fostering my love of stories.
Recent Comments