Jazz Forms and Improvisation

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...

Class members explore the concepts of texture in music and musical arrangements by examining Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo" and "Harlem Airshaft."

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 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.

In this International Jazz Day activity, students complete activities such as reading a passage, phrase matching, fill in the blanks, correct words, multiple choice, spelling, sequencing, scrambled sentences, writing questions, survey,...

High schoolers analyze the elements of poetry and jazz. In this critical thinking skills lesson, students take a closer look at the rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, form, free verse, lyricism, and imagery that exist is jazz as well as poetry. 

Students evaluate jazz music and a jazz music performance. They collaborate and create an improvised group short story. They improvise a musical piece on found objects.

Students study early New Orleans Jazz music and recognize Louis Armstrong as an early jazz artist. They recognize the elements and roots of Jazz.

Young scholars explore their own responses to sound by hearing the music as a regular part of the class structure. They develop an awareness that certain art evokes certain sounds and moods and develop an intuitive responses to the music.

High schoolers listen to selections of New Orleans street band music. They explore the culture of New Orleans in the 1920's, and perform a closer examination of Armstrong's music.