Jazz Forms and Improvisation

Designed as a teacher resource, a packet identifies resources and approaches instructors can use to incorporate jazz into their history classes. Materials are identified by historical era, from the roots of jazz prior to World War I to...

Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...

Students investigate the life and education of current conductor, composer, and jazz musician Thara Memory in this 50-minute lesson introducing a two day unit. A video of Thara is included.

Students observe that there are myriad combinations of rhythms to choose from when improvising jazz and blues music, and recognize that while the variations seem infinite, they are in fact finite. They notate a 12 bar blues progression...

A collection of videos directs viewers through a series of seven videos detailing all things jazz. Video topics include how to play, its forms, rhythm, syncopation, swing, improvisation, and explores the rhythm, horn, and wind sections.  

Students explore jazz's primary elements. They identify the basic definitions of terms associated with jazz. In addition, they listen to Song for My Father.

Students explore the various rhythmic combinations in jazz and blues music. They watch a video segment, apply a mathematical formula to calculate the number of possible rhythmic combinations, and perform a combination of notes and...

Students recognize significant developments in New Orleans jazz music. They improvise blues licks using notes from a minor pentatonic scale.

Students explore development of jazz music in the 1930s by forming imaginary jazz bands which tour several cities in Depression-era America. Jazz band members create imaginary identities for themselves, develop publicity for their tour,...

Students analyze the impact of jazz on the novel, "Invisible Man," by Ralph Ellison. They read and discuss excerpts of the novel, write an essay on the influence of jazz on Ralph Ellison as a writer, and view video excerpts on jazz...