help me with my class?

i think i included that one last time!
movie clips are fine if they aren't from "a song is born" (actually the musical parts were the only good part of that movie, the romance made me want to hurl and every character was annoying)

Balboa, which came up around the same time as Lindy Hop but on the West coast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehVZktW0BK4&list=PL1m2S0OSei-VkqsKw0qrxQ0IfgkxBL-vO&index=13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH1Fru-RttA

Wow, didn't know about this thread or that you were teaching that, but sounds like a blast. A friend in a CUNY music PhD program once invited me to do a little guest thing on jazz for her freshman music appreciation class and I loved putting together the lesson and teaching it.

it's really fun!! this is the second semester i've taught it, and it's much easier the second time now that i have some presentations prepared. it feels like a privilege and honor to go to work and talk about music for 3 hours!!!

tonight we are getting schooled on afro-colombian traditional music, dance, and drumming!!

omg so this is midterms and i just heard some very loud music coming from the headphones of one of my students. the songs i wanted them to listen to (both fairly quiet) are linked on our LMS as well as available offline (on CD) but apparently one student was determined to just google the song title and wound up listening to a version of "The Foggy Dew" by some group called Wenches and Rogues
lol
it sounded awful

I’m sure it possible to assemble an all-ukulele version of any listening syllabus

but why?

masochism?

To teach the dangers of random YouTube searches

make wenches/rogues read benjamin's "work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction" as penance

my cousin works with a community over 60's ukulele band project. He's always posting the results on youtube like as if this hateful twee shit is bringing some fucking light into the world.

teaching as a profession isn't masochism enough? j/k i love teaching but grading sucks

Lolol wenches and rogues

next week i am expanding my international jazz diaspora content and i would like to see any recommendations y'all have for the following: (requesting googleable search terms and youtubes if you feel like it)

Caribbean/Cuban jazz (past or present)
Brazilian jazz (I think this is actually the easiest one for me but bring it on if you have qreat ideas)
Japanese jazz (i know nothing at all about this but i assume Japan has produced some jazz or jazz-esque artists?)
African (I am aware of some Ethiopian jazz but not much beyond that)
Other parts of the world that have produced jazz-like or jazz-influenced/saturated music?

I'm familiar with some big names but i am wondering what i'm missing
help if you can! thank you

Cuban piano maestro Chucho Valdes (son of Bebo) is someone I like a lot, his 90's Blue Note albums are all brilliant, his solo Pianissimo alb is a good showcase for his piano genius and feel for some Cuban standards. There is probably loads more good stuff, but that is far as I've got.

Just been listening to his Solo Piano alb from '91, it's wonderful!

almost Cecil Taylor wonderful in parts!

I've been digging the by-way-of-Sweden African jazz of Bengt Berger & Don Cherry's Bitter Funeral Beer Band. The 80s fashion disasters can dissuade, but the music is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4hKAS_tQ9w&index=5&list=PL9E8643186918FD23

Also, Soviet-era Vagif Mustafazade explorations connecting jazz to Azerbaijan's folk and classical traditions. His straight up 1970s jazz is great, but stuff like this is particularly intriguing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BId54VzErTU&index=23&list=PLB290E8FF6C96C1D6

ok this is going to get messy and isn't necessarily going to be straight jazz

eastern bloc jazz - lost of it. really great polish jazz, of course, well-known enough that i figure you won't need me to recommend you for instance zbigniew seifert or tomasz stanko. but also the soviet union itself had some sweet jazz musos, i'm gonna break these links so they don't clog up the thread

melodiya ensemble's labyrinth: fgwNtnGYBAg
yuri morozov from "jazz night": 4a_PbwuuO_E
marimba plus: sE-Ya6rL66c

japanese jazz - a couple of great comps out this year, "j-jazz" it gets called. here's a random comp off the youtube: kNRIFhkYONc - for more modern stuff i really like "soil & 'pimp' sessions", here's a video of them AQMgXPFzdg8 - oh and of course i LOVE LOVE LOVE shibusashirazu orchestra, goddamn you cannot go wrong with these people UfW2j5tFVGI

african jazz - aside from ethio-jazz the biggest jazz scene i know is the south african jazz scene, a lot of these folks came to england and are well-known, chris mcgregor etc, also abdullah ibrahim (FXfWLrLwW_4). the guy known as the south african charlie parker was kippie moeketsi, he didn't record much but here's one of his songs: (k3mMEr5UnRI). like a lot of jazz music jazz in africa mutated into forms we might not necessarily recognize as "jazz" - kwela and suchlike, and of course there's stuff like the famous "skokiaan" by the cold storage band from zimbabwe in the "tsaba-tsaba" style (and the b-side of which is a charming take on "in the mood" with vocals, see: https://soulsafari.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/african-dance-band-of-the-cold-storage-commission-of-s-rhodesia-in-the-mood.mp3) which i'm not going to cover here but much of which is damn good. for more modern south african stuff you want to hear Nduduzo Makhathini: sTr5a93n4fw

cuban jazz - you're talking after the "afro-cuban" heyday, i'm assuming, you don't need to know about machito. jazz in cuba post this of course developed into the well-known "boogaloo" style but also into something called "descargas", one of the best albums in this genre is cachao y su ritmo caliente - "cuban jam sessions in miniature 'descargas'", here: B6KenosUuJ8. some good trombone here, also in this vein worth hearing el trombon majadero by generoso jimenez, ub_l9M3GVWo. for more modern stuff i like yosvany terry's "contrapuntisco", it is definitely very complex and academic, apologies for that, that's just how i tend to like my jazz QCbkJbQLku8

i'd also recommend jan johansson's "jazz pa svenska", this is european jazz but it uses traditional swesish melodies as its basis, see t2D5HlKLh34&list=PLKUyqLlH6brkzzJgD6Gdriga4mdtCAMBJ

you probably got more on brazilian jazz than me, i'd be remiss if i didn't recommend the quarteto novo album tho y374WwqZtOI

a good australian jazz record is yaarandoo by rob thomsett 5ym3rzdx-Bc

anyway. lots of good jazz.

that's ok! thank you!! i am trying to show students how the concept/basic idea of jazz spread all over the world and cross-pollinated with other cultures. they are really interested in cross-cultural stuff.

well, let me give you another swedish song, "be-bop accordeon": vwzVWxyyp7E
i also like stuff like rufus harley's jazz bagpiping, but rufus harley was all-american as they come

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozambique_(music)

apparently the "Afro" of Afro-Cuban jazz is mostly derived from the music of Mozambique.

oh, hell, let's take this from another direction. this isn't jazz, but the saxophone is way more associated with jazz than it is from carnatic music:

ItbPutkMFe0

ok wait sorry check this out this is some some great shit i just stumbled into, the title track of masahiko togashi's "spiritual nature" album from 1975, seriously goddamn wow, just this great pile of basses and flutes and percussion

0sUUlOv0ZFI

https://i2.wp.com/latinjazznet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Carlos-Averhoff-Jr.-Jazz-Meets-Cuban-Timba-CD-Cover-August-2018.jpg?w=500&ssl=1

this a more current Cuban release I've been liking recently, another bandleader who is the son a Cuban legend, which might suggest nepotism rules over there!

No idea why youtube urls pull from the address bar aren't working, so here's a attempt at pasting in my links through the share buttons

https://youtu.be/ALp9N_lS_b8

https://youtu.be/BId54VzErTU

I can't find any excerpts on YT, but as far as Russian/Central Asian free improv goes, I strongly recommend Astreja (or Astrea depending on the transliteration)'s Music from Davos. It features Sofia Gubaidulina (still one of the greatest living composers) and Viktor Suslin playing a variety of traditional instruments from the Caucasus region, alongside percussionist Mark Pekarsky and singer Valentina Ponomareva. It may not count as jazz if we go by a stricter definition, but that can make for an interesting discussion in its own right.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3461509042_10.jpg

good noisy Russian Free Jazz group here!

on the cross-cultural/jazz-influenced end I'd be tempted to include some african big band stuff like congolese soukous a la Franco Luambo & OK Jazz, Fela Kuti & more recent afrobeat disciples like Lagbaja, or Salah Ragab's egyptian jazz. you could also have some 50s jamaican ska but I don't enough to recommend.

otherwise surely a bit of Django Reinhardt/gypsy jazz, perhaps L Subramaniam's indo jazz/fusion, or John Zorn/Masada-style klezmer-jazz

baku in azerbaijan is supposed to have a strong jazz history, idk anything about it tho

Hungarian avante garde Jazz meister Szilard Mezei is another interesting player, sort of surreal Marching Music, Bartok and Jazz influences. His last album was a concept album about postwar genocide in the East. Perhaps a bit much for some!

there is one tune he did which was a homage to Mal Waldron, and it was one of the most moving pieces of music I'd heard in years!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVkXT3xQr0Q

this type of stuff

i am getting to fela etc in a later lesson -- have no fear!

Japanese jazz fusion had a surge of international recognition at the start of the 1980s, and there's been a wave of renewed interest in the last few years. Acts of note include Ryo Kawasaki, Sadao Watanabe, Hiroshi Fukumura, Casiopea, Genji Sawai & Bacon Egg, Teruo Nakamura, Pacific Jam, Arakawa Band, Himiko Kikuchi, Nobuo Yagi.

Re African jazz, this group is from thee tyme of far-out sounds making their way even unto Voice of America etc., also increasingly demanded in clubs, and they always had several schools of body language grooving simultaneously---no perfect gateway, so pick any (if it doesn't show, search Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo Cotonou)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_pLdM12yx4

Mulatu Astatke & His Ethiopian Quintet ‎– Afro-Latin Soul Vols 1 & 2 (1966 LPs reissued this year) He plays billowing, rattling vibes over his own piano and percussion---very early, imperfect, but he's already got it, also some hip guests show up occasionally (what is that trumpet player on, I want some)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCxFDt4xSXA

we have a thread for japanese jazz fyi

Japanese jazz, "j-jazz"

Don't sleep onRough Guide To Ethiopian Jazz, with several approaches, all roads leading to a splendid gateway.
Haven't really followed Abullah Ibrahim or South African jazz overall as much as I should, but certainly his Ekaya was a white sky desert rose in my brain, Water from an Ancient Well also an old favorite; he has a way of blending echoes of Monk, Ellington, various homegrown colors, taking 'em a bit further on African Space Program. Still need to check the one with Gato Barbieri, from when AI was still billed over here as Dollar Brand.
Speaking of Gato, I'm still mostly familiar with his nutty romantic music for/in the notoriousLast Tango In Paris and especially Latin America: Chapter I---now that's what I call magic realism (also epic folklore and more romance). Follow-up, Bolivia, brings in some Americans, which works, and then later he goes to New York but haven't heard that one.

I am getting better at this! week 2 is the week where we have a LOT of vocabulary and talk about the elements of music. It's probably the most fun because we can talk about ANY KIND OF MUSIC as long as it illustrates a principle we are trying to learn. I also brought a bunch of instruments to try out and demonstrate the elements of music. This is more fun than I ever expected to have at work and it is because I stepped up and redesigned the whole curriculum. Thank you ilx for helping me!

Is this your third time through teaching this? Pretty curious to see the lecture titles or rough outline.

yes, this is my third time. i have two sections now, and plan to open a third (and find another teacher) in the fall. enrollment is booming!

the class is structured in 4 parts -- intro/vocabulary/what is music and how do i talk/write about it? ---> folk music of the world (description practice, students do a presentation) ---> intro to jazz/jazz diaspora (also includes a presentation) --> popular music by the decade starting in the 1950s (this part could change depending on who is teaching the class, it happens to be something i know just enough about to teach other people)

they also have two larger writing assignments -- observing and writing about a musical performance of their choice (i also host outings) and interviewing a person who works in the field of music (volunteer interviewees welcome! if you are interested webmail me your contact info! no jokers)

I've just started reading something that seems like it might be helpful: Playing Changes: Jazz For The New Century, by Nate Chinen---starts on an evening in 2017! But skimming ahead, can see it loops back aways, tracing M Base Collective and its influence, for inst. Cover flap assures us that this traces the rise of jazz historicism, institutionalism, and and beyond, w increasing influence of R&b, hip-hop, other, also how "shape-shifting elders," like Shorter and Threadgill, "have moved the aesthetic center." Blurbs by Sonny Rollins, Alx Ross, Herbie Hancock.

just a little update --

the smaller of my two classes meets at night and i gave them the option of putting together an end of semester show as their final project. today is flyer/flier-making/digitizing/distributing and the show is in 2 weeks. we have a stylistically and culturally diverse lineup and everyone is giving it their best so far, self included. so far, so good!

my other class is going ahead with the regular curriculum so it's also interesting to see the difference between the two classes.

by show, you mean mixtapes or something like that?

No we’re going to put on a real performance!! In our classroom! Room 169 is about to get lit 🔥

!

yeah! it's the first time i am trying this project and its success depends entirely on my students not dropping the ball on ANYTHING
but
their attendance and participation has been so reliable and of such a dedicated quality that i have faith in them