JAZZ IT UP

JAZZ IT UP

Learning Description

In this lesson, students will delve into the world of jazz music to gain insights into the Harlem Renaissance. They will analyze and create improvisational pieces, incorporating key elements of jazz.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: 4-5
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & SOCIAL STUDIES
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"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can maintain body percussion ostinato. 

  • I can improvise using body percussion, scat syllables, and/or found sound.  

  • I can create an 8-beat verbal phrase reiterating what I learned in the lesson.

Essential Questions

  • How can learning about a genre of music teach us about the historical context in which it was created?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 5: 

SS5H2 Describe U.S. involvement in World War I and post-World War I America.

  1. Describe the cultural developments and individual contributions in the 1920s of the Jazz Age (Louis Armstrong), the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes), baseball (Babe Ruth), the automobile (Henry Ford), and transatlantic flight (Charles Lindbergh).

Arts Standards

Grade 5:

ESGM5.CR.1 Improvise melodies, variations, and accompaniments.

 

ESGM5.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

 

ESGM5.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

ESGM5.RE.2 Evaluate music and music performances.

 

ESGM5.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 5: 

5.2.CX Contextualize the post-war economic climate on the cultural landscape throughout the United States and South Carolina.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 2: I can improvise music.

 

Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.

 

Anchor Standard 6: I can analyze music.

 

Anchor Standard 7: I can evaluate music.

Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

  • Harlem Renaissance - an intellectual, cultural, and artistic movement that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, primarily centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City

  • Jazz - A genre of music that originated in the early 20th century, primarily within African American communities in New Orleans

Arts Vocabulary

  • Found sound - Using everyday objects in the environment to create sound

  • Ostinato - Repeated pattern
  • Patsching - A body percussion technique that involves rhythmically striking the thigh with the palm of the hand, usually near the knee

 

  • Syncopation - Shifting of the accent to a weak beat or an off beat

  • Scat singing - A vocal jazz style using improvised nonsense syllables performed with an improvised melody, usually over instrumental accompaniment

 

Materials

  • Found sound possibilities (pencils to tap on desk, etc.) 
  • Jazz recordings (“Black and Tan Fantasy,” Duke Ellington; “When the Saints go Marching in,” Louis Armstrong; “Minnie the Moocher,” Cab Calloway) 
  • Sound source (computer and speakers)

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

  • Listen to an example of a jazz piece, such as “Black and Tan Fantasy” by Duke Ellington. 
  • Have students describe what they heard. 
  • Lead students to noticing the following elements:
    • Syncopation (use visual and/or patsching on beats and clapping on off-beats to aid understanding) 
    • Highly rhythmic  
    • Varied instruments (trumpet, saxophone, piano, drums)  
    • Improvisation 

 

Work Session

  • Arrange students in a circle. Facilitate a call and echo response using body percussion, found sound, movement and/or scat syllables, having students lead if they are comfortable. 
  • Explain that this type of sound is known as "call and response", a musical technique in which one instrument, voice, or part of a band answers another by repeating the sound. 
  • The alternation between leader and chorus is a defining characteristic of African music, present in music intended for work, play, mourning, etc., and is a common element in jazz. 
  • Demonstrate by singing “Over my Head” or listen to an example of call and response, such as Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher".  
  • Expand echoing/call and response to an improvisation “jam session”.
    • First, challenge students to create 8-beat body percussion (or found sound) ostinato to repeat under improvisations.
      • Use an 8-beat visual (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8) to help students understand phrase length. 
    • While students maintain ostinato, improvise using body percussion, found sound, and/or scat (nonsense) syllables. 
    • Lead students to understanding of similarities and differences between renditions, helping them understand that improvisations feed off of and into other improvisations.  
    • Invite students to improvise, using the 8-beat visual to help students understand phrase length. 
    • Begin by improvising a phrase and having students improvise response. 
    • Challenge students to end their improvisations on beat seven to allow the next person time to think and to provide a final point for their improvisation (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 -). 
    • Challenge students to relate their improvisation to what you are doing (perhaps by taking part of your pattern and using it in their pattern) so that their pattern compliments (sounds good with) the improvisation they just heard.
    • Discuss how the improvisations were similar yet different. 
    • Discuss how such improvisation is a kind of "riffing". In jazz, musicians may riff off of each other's melody when improvising solos. 
  • Listen to Louis Armstrong’s “When the Saints Go Marching In”, helping students notice how the musicians are able to expand and complicate a melody or theme by listening to another member of a group play a solo and responding to them through their own solo.
    • Often the main melody in jazz acts as a recurring theme in a piece of music, and the other sections of a piece work to "riff" off of, expand on, or veer away from the main melody, but the main melody is audible and/or usually comes back.  
  • Briefly describe the evolution of jazz as an original American music that largely originated with African Americans. The need for self-expression stemmed from the African musical heritage where music was (and is) very important in maintaining and continuing the culture.
    • When Africans were brought to America, they brought along the tradition of using music to accompany and define their lives. 
    • Jazz originated in New Orleans, a town with a tradition of celebration. All kinds of music existed there—blues, church music, folk music, ragtime, military marching bands, African drumming, and many dance styles. When these musics blended into one, jazz was born. 
    • In the early 1920s, many African American artists, writers, musicians, and performers lived in a New York City neighborhood called Harlem and were part of a cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. A large migration from the South to the North after World War I brought many African Americans to Harlem. 
    • Jazz was a relatively new type of music in the 1920’s and 1930’s but was becoming very popular in Harlem, which was home to many musicians. Several other American cities (New Orleans, Chicago) also had rich jazz scenes where people could go to jazz clubs, music clubs, dance halls, and concert halls to hear jazz. Some of the most famous venues include the Apollo Theater, The Cotton Club, Lennox Lounge and the Savoy Ballroom.

 

Closing Reflection

  • As a closing assessment activity, have students work individually or in small groups to create 8-beat speeches reiterating something from the lesson content (e.g., “jazz…an American creation”). 
  • Use the same format as before, sitting or standing in circle and maintaining body percussion ostinato while students speak their creations.

 

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, participation in “call and response” riffing and “jam sessions”, and analysis of music.

 

Summative

CHECKLIST

  • Students can maintain body percussion ostinato.  
  • Students can improvise using body percussion, scat syllables, and/or found sound.  
  • Students can create 8-beat verbal phrase reiterating lesson content.

 

DIFFERENTIATION 

Acceleration: 

  • Have students explore scat singing using Frank Holder’s “Scat Singing” (available on iTunes).  Listen to recordings of contemporary jazz artists (e.g., Wynton Marsalis).  
  • Compare and contrast their jazz styles to the jazz “pioneers.”  
  • Use a Venn diagram to compare/contrast various renditions of the same jazz piece.  
  • Have students research various jazz pioneers (Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, etc.), focusing on the social and cultural entities impacting their lives and music.  
  • Divide students into small groups. Have each person write a short paragraph (3-4 sentences) about a given topic. Exchange papers with other people in the group; after reading each paper, have each student use the basic content of their peer’s writing but modify it somewhat. Compare and contrast with original writing, using as an example of “riffing.”

Remediation: 

  • Limit the focus of the characteristics of jazz to one or two that the students will explore, such as “call and response” and improvisation, rather than focusing on multiple elements of jazz.
  • Provide visuals to help aid in comprehension.

 

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Maribeth Yoder-White.

Revised and copyright: September 2024 @ ArtsNOW

 

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