Jazz grew out of the African-American community at the turn of the 20th century, a time when blacks were being denied their most basic rights. The music has since become a part of every American's birthright, a timeless symbol of American individualism and ingenuity, American democracy and inclusiveness. In this lesson students will learn about the social, cultural, and economic origins of jazz within the African-American community.

SPARK gets an insider's look at the Rova Saxophone Quartet, a vanguard musical group that has improvised its way along the cutting edge of the music and sound art scene for 25 years. This Educator Guide explores improvisation in music, jazz and free jazz.

In this lesson students will study how social and economic changes in post–World War II America influenced arts and culture. Students will learn about the experience of African Americans in the postwar period, including the civil rights movement and desegregation, and the influence of these experiences on African-American culture. Students will study how competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War contributed to the popularity of jazz around the world. They will learn about the musical characteristics of bebop, and be able to articulate the similarities and differences between earlier jazz styles (such as swing) and bebop. Students will identify important jazz innovators and soloists in the postwar period, and be able to identify characteristics of bebop, cool jazz, Latin jazz, and hard bop. Students will understand how different conceptions of artistry and the role of artists influenced the development, dissemination, and popularity of jazz in the 1940s and 1950s.

The Berkman Center is a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. We represent a network of faculty, students, fellows, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and virtual architects working to identify and engage with the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace.

We investigate the real and possible boundaries in cyberspace between open and closed systems of code, of commerce, of governance, and of education, and the relationship of law to each. We do this through active rather than passive research, believing that the best way to understand cyberspace is to actually build out into it.

Cannonball Adderley and the Cannonball Express. Program contains numerous 'magazine-style' segments, of which the most prominent is host John Slade's interview with musician Cannonball Adderley. Accompanying the interview, in segments before and after, is performance footage of Adderley's jazz band Cannonball Express (with Bobby Timmons, Walter Booker and Roy McCurdy) shot live at Paul's Mall in Boston the night before the interview. Other segments include a performance by the Immala Blakely Dancers, an interview with Harvard psychiatry professor Dr. Alvin Pouissant about his book Why Blacks Kill Blacks, a demonstration of self-defense techniques using karate with black belt Harry Gardner, and a performance by jazz group The J.R. Mitchell Experience. Produced by John Slade. Directed by Russell Tillman.

This module represents information regarding the formation of a chamber choir and jazz choir. Items discussed include size of ensemble, suggestions regarding performance repertoire, acceptance of performance venues and general guidelines for these ensembles.

In this video segment from Jazz at Lincoln Center, jazz musicians perform a collective improvisation.

What happens when great minds congregate in the same time and place? How do creative individuals both reflect and influence the places and time periods in which they live? Drop Me Off in Harlem explores these questions in the context of the vibrant, complex, and unique moment in time that was the Harlem Renaissance.

Elvin Jones, a jazz drummer best known for his work with John Coltrane, was a major influence on the "free jazz" movement in the 1960's. His complex, polyrhythmic drumming style influenced both rock and jazz drummers.

SPARK follows Jared "Choclatt" Crawford as he prepares for his foot-tapping new musical theater production "Hit It!" at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. This Educator Guide is about the history of drumming, street performers, and African American musical theater.

A short biography of the great jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden.

This is the companion website to the Ken Burns PBS series that aired in January 2001. Explore cities and clubs where jazz developed; listen to excerpts of bebop, cool jazz and other styles; discover what makes jazz jazz and the theory behind the art form often called the purest expression of American democracy. The site provides biographies of nearly 100 musicians, transcripts of interviews that went into the making of the show, a virtual piano, a study guide and more than a dozen lessons.

Students will gain knowledge about major new developments in cultural and social life during the 1920s and 1930s and will learn how these developments were influenced by political, economic, and international events. Students will understand how jazz developed and spread throughout the country through regional bands, migration, interaction between black and white musicians, and the application of new technology. Students will learn how the evolution of jazz was influenced by Prohibition, the Great Depression, and World War II. Students will identify important jazz soloists and band-leaders, and be able to trace the evolution of improvised solos, expanded bands, and the popularity of jazz.

The school offers lessons for teaching about jazz in American history or music class for Grades 5, 8, and 11. Learn about the evolution of jazz, different jazz styles, improvisation, basic musical elements, and how jazz influenced (and was influenced by) American culture. The mission of The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz is to offer public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the world, helping students develop imaginative thinking, creativity, curiosity, a positive self image, and a respect for their own and others' cultural heritage.

Suggestions for introducing elementary-school-aged children to Scott Joplin, the "king of ragtime".

This course fosters the development of aural skills that lead to an understanding of Western music. The musical novice is introduced to the ways in which music is put together and is taught how to listen to a wide variety of musical styles, from Bach and Mozart, to Gregorian chant, to the blues.

Many musical traditions, in history as well as in the modern world, are based on modes or ragas rather than on major and minor scales.

Begins with the premise that the 1960s mark a great dividing point in the history of twentieth-century Western musical culture, and explores the ways in which various social and artistic concerns of composers, performers, and listeners have evolved since that decade. Focuses on works by classical composers from around the world. Topics to be explored include: the impact of rock, as it developed during the 1960s-70s; the concurrent emergence of post-serial, neo-tonal, Minimalist, and New Age styles; the globalization of Western musical traditions; the impact of new technologies; and the significance of music video, video games, and other versions of (digital) multimedia. Interweaves discussion of these topics with close study of seminal musical works, evenly distributed across the four decades since 1960. Works by MIT composers included.

In this video segment from Jazz at Lincoln Center, musicians create two different musical conversations.