Cross-Curricular Jazz Incorporation

Submitted by Martha Stanley, Tallahassee, Florida

Idea posted June 18, 2004

Here is an idea for incorporating Jazz into cross-curricular activities:

Make an American Music Tree and explore all of it's branches!

Start with the British Isles and Africa, import them to America around 1770, add hymnody in white churches which spills into black lives, add call and response, blues, field hollers, and African characteristics.

Next, move to music of the pre-civil war, include American folk music from white sources, then to minstrel shows, ragtime, popular music of the teens and 1920s

Then, mix it up with the beginnings of radio with all the crossovers that occurred, jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, and big bands.

Expand in the late 1940s with the beginnings of rock and roll, the changes in types of jazz, and Texas swing; and be sure to include the German polka influence.

After which, move to rock, soft jazz, influence of electrical instruments, the folk revolution, country, and second generation bluegrass.

Which moves into disco, rap, reggae, hip hop, etc.