Jazz is a uniquely American music that is deeply rooted in the southern part of the United States, specifically, New Orleans. The unique blend of people and cultures (each bringing their own music and traditions) along with the social climate of the day made the advent of jazz possible there, as opposed to elsewhere in the world.
Spanish, French, Caribbean, freed slaves and Creole were among the different people that lived together in New Orleans. And although they didn’t always like each other, jazz music gave them a reason to come together. West African rhythms and dance, blues harmony and vocal inflections, call and response from the many local churches and traditional brass band instrumentation are just a few of the many components that went into making jazz. Buddy Bolden, one of the first great jazz musicians was known for his ability to take all of these influences and translate them into the language of music.
Other influential New Orleans jazz musicians include Jelly Roll Morton, Joe “King” Oliver and Louis Armstrong.
Learning Targets
1. Students will recognize the birth of jazz in New Orleans.
2. Students will recognize and identify the social conditions and different cultures that made the development of jazz possible.
3. Students will compare different musical genres including opera, ragtime, blues, brass band, West African drumming and spirituals.
4. Students will use the definitions of rhythm, melody and harmony and their definitions to construct a musical “profile” of different musical genres.
5. Students will define and apply such terms as rhythm, port city, jazz, melody and harmony.
Vocabulary
Rhythm: The organized motion of sounds and rest
Port City: A city located on a ocean or to another large body of water connected to an ocean
Melody: The part of a song that you sing
Harmony: The chords that support the written and improvised melodies
What is Jazz? Activities
Influences on Jazz
Materials: Handout (click to download), Map of New Orleans (optional)
- Begin by asking students if they have ever heard of jazz? Do they know what jazz is? Can they name any jazz musicians? Have they ever been to a jazz concert? Give the definition of jazz, emphasizing that the music was born in New Orleans.
- Have students read aloud or silently the opening paragraph of the accompanying handout (click above to download). Explain that New Orleans was home to many different types of people, each with their own culture and style of music and out of this mixing together of different cultures came jazz.
- Introduce Charles “Buddy” Bolden as the historical figure for the lesson. Have a student or students read the biography from the handout aloud to the class.
- It is now time for the group activity. The types of music touched on in the reading are listed in the activity column and correspond to specific examples listed below. Put the students in groups, either randomly or in groups with students of similar ability. As a class, come up with the definitions of the following words: melody, harmony and rhythm. If your students are not advanced enough for this, you can simply give them the definitions or have them read them aloud from the glossary.
- Using the definitions as guidelines, have the students come up with a musical “profile” of each genre of music. You will play each example and allow students to discuss the characteristics of each genre, using the definitions as guideposts for their discussions. They can keep track of their group’s thoughts by writing them in the workbook.
- After you have finished, have a group discussion as to why each group profiled each type of music the way they did. Come up with a class “profile” for each musical genre.
Listening Examples
Click to listen to each example. And feel free to click the three dots to download!
Opera
Brass Band
West African Drumming
Blues
Ragtime
Spirituals
The Melting Pot
This activity can be used as a follow-up to or in conjunction with the “Influences on Jazz” activity and is meant to strengthen students’ knowledge of the styles of music that influenced jazz and highlight how they came together to create jazz.
Materials: Influences on Jazz Cards (click to download) – to prep, print out and cut along the dotted lines; A bucket, pot, or cauldron, labeled with the word “JAZZ.”
- Start by reviewing the concept that jazz was created through influences from many other styles of music. Discuss other processes where different ingredients or influences come together to create something new and unique. Examples could include ingredients coming together in a recipe, colors combining to make a brand new color, or even your students coming together to make your unique classroom.
- Break the class up into groups. You can either split them into small groups and hand each group a set of cards or have 12 pairs/small groups that each have one card.
- Have the students work together to match each genre card with the card that has the characteristics of that genre. Attach matching cards together with a paperclip or rubber band.
- When each pair are put together, have the students put them into the “cauldron” labeled “JAZZ,” symbolizing the combining of different genres to create jazz.