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Jazz Night in America Lessons Plans

New Lesson Plans July 2020

"Jazz is the Mother of Hip Hop: How Sampling Connects Genres"

Lesson Plan Grades 3-5, Lesson Plan Grades 6-8

Summary: Why do hip-hop producers gravitate toward jazz samples? For a mood, for sonic timbre, for a unique rhythmic component. Swing is a precursor to the boom-bap. "If you're a hip-hop producer that wants a lot of melodic stuff happening," pianist Robert Glasper says, "you're probably going to go to jazz first."

Younger students will learn new vocabulary around music production, while older students will dive into open source soft ware to create their own compositions based on sampling.

"Musical Cannibalism with Cyro Baptista"

Lesson Plan Grades 9-12

Summary: Anthropofagia — cultural cannibalism — is a concept based on an essay published by the poet and father of Brazilian modernism, Oswald de Andrade. Brazilian "percussionista" Cyro Baptista has applied this philosophy to create ingenious music for more than five decades.

Students will work in pairs to create a slide presentation on the theme of musical cannibalism and then present to classmates, expanding beyond music and how this idea is a metaphor within other art forms.

Grades 3-5

“How Ella Fitzgerald Turned Forgotten Lyrics into One of Her Best Performances Ever”

Lesson Plan PDF

Most people who don't know jazz can probably recognize the name of one of the genre's best singers: Ella Fitzgerald. She's arguably one of the most important vocalists not just in jazz but in the entire history of American music. With an exceptional vocal style, supreme technical capabilities and a spirited energy, she was "The First Lady of Song."

Summary: The music of pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim conveys an extraordinary depth in stillness. More than perhaps any other improvising artist, he knows how to turn the solitary act of introspection into a communal experience that's both transporting and immersive.

 

*This animated documentary short deals with the violence, pain and fear associated with Apartheid - era South Africa. 
 
 

Grades 9-12

 

Lesson Plan PDF

Summary: Pedrito Martinez is a world-class Afro-Cuban percussionist — a rumbero called upon by many jazz and pop stars when they need hand drumming, as well as a Grammy-nominated singing bandleader in his own right. He's also a Santería priest.

Those two aspects of Martinez's life are inextricably connected. In 2014, when we documented the new suite of music that Wynton Marsalis had written to feature Martinez and Cuban piano virtuoso Chucho Valdés, we spoke with Martinez about his practice of the Afro-Cuban religion, and followed him to a private ceremony in The Bronx. "What made me love the religion was the music," he told us.

Sample Written Rubric for all above lesson plans.

Prepared by Joe Elefante, Music Teacher, Berkeley Heights, NJ Public Schools. MA Educational Leadership, BA Music Performance (Jazz Studies).

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