Every month, the music lab teachers select a theme for the Music Technology and Learning Lab. Students explore the theme in the Music History, Composition, and Listening Stations during their scheduled music lessons. The topic for the month of October is Jazz.
Jazz began with African American musicians in the early 1900s. Despite some less reputable beginnings, this mix of European, Latin, and African American musical styles led to many of the popular music genres today, like R&B and rock and roll. Jazz is an American classical music genre.
As you can hear, jazz music creates complicated melodies and rhythms. It’s difficult to define but you learn to know it when you hear it. It also has heavy lean into improvisation and syncopation, which leads to its unique sounds. Because of those two qualities, jazz isn’t meant to be read on a page of music but experienced live.
The ‘Roaring 20s,’ also known as the Jazz Age, are long past, but jazz is still very alive and very American. Below is the playlist for our students to learn more about jazz.