Reprinted with permission from the spring 2017 issue of the Rhode Island Music Education Review (RIMER).
Having a middle school jazz program provides an enriching musical experience for students who are currently involved in an instrumental program. Young players bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the table, and many are eager and highly motivated to learn about different styles of music. Jazz bands provide a small group setting to introduce different styles of playing and to teach the art of improvisation. These skills will ultimately benefit your entire instrumental program. The keys to a successful jazz program include: finding ways to include as many students as possible, keeping lines of communication open, and taking advantage of the many resources available.
At North Smithfield Middle School (NSMS), we started with one jazz band. We currently have two jazz bands: Jazz Band II and Jazz Band I. Jazz Band II is a beginner/intermediate group that consists of sixth and seventh graders, and is open to all instruments. Jazz Band I is the advanced group which consists of mostly eighth graders with traditional instrumentation only. It typically includes students with prior jazz band experience, and these students are strongly encouraged to study privately.
As a middle school band director who also leads our school jazz ensembles, I am often asked how I approach teaching jazz band to younger students. Questions I am often asked are:
- How do you start your jazz program?
- When do you rehearse your students?
- Do you audition students for placement in your groups?
- Do you include any student in your jazz band?
As we begin the new academic year, I have put together some thoughts on how I have approached starting and developing a middle school jazz program. In the end, each director has to decide what works for his/her particular situation, try out different approaches, and modify along the way. The following are some ideas and techniques that I have tried when developing the NSMS jazz program, as well as some resources and approaches I have used in the rehearsal process.
Starting Your Jazz Band
Connection with the Concert Band
The school concert band gives students the opportunity to develop musical concepts such as tone quality, clean articulations, playing with good balance, dynamic contrast, etc. on a regular basis. Building your jazz band is directly connected with what is being done and established in the school concert band. Having a school jazz band provides the opportunity to reinforce these concepts in a secondary ensemble, in addition to introducing new stylistic concepts like playing in a swing style, blending with a rhythm section, and improvising. The musicianship of the concert band carries over to the jazz band and vice versa. Because of this, our jazz bands at NSMS usually consist of students that are already members of our school concert band or chorus.
Philosophy for Group Placement
Each director has to decide on a personal philosophy for selecting students for his/her school jazz band. Some thoughts for directors to consider are:
- Will the group be by audition only, or will it be an all-inclusive group?
- Should students be one on a part, or will parts be doubled?
- Should there be traditional jazz band instrumentation (sax, trumpet, trombone) only or mixed instrumentation (flute, horn, tuba, etc)?
I have found that having an inclusive approach can be quite effective, especially when first building a program and generating student enthusiasm. I initially did this at NSMS when there was only one jazz band. Our jazz band grew from 20 to about 40 students and featured wind players ranging from oboe to French horn. This ensures as many students as possible get to learn about jazz concepts and play in a smaller ensemble setting. Most of the method books and jazz arrangements for younger ensembles come with ready-made parts for all instruments such as horn and flute.
As our jazz band numbers continued to grow, we expanded to two jazz bands, and I could be more selective in our instrumentation and choosing players to fill roles, while continuing to allow all students to be a part of our jazz program.
Jazz Band II continues to include students of all ability levels on any instrument with no limit to the size of the ensemble. This group performs at two school concerts per year, with the winter concert featuring primarily 7th graders and some 8th graders. Our spring Jazz Night concert incorporates 6th grade beginners into Jazz Band II. This provides a great introduction to jazz styles and improvisation for beginners, and allows the older 7th and 8th graders a chance to model and lead the younger students.
Jazz Band I is limited to about 20 students on saxophone, trumpet, trombone, piano, guitar (when available), bass, and drums. While we typically do not audition students, auditions are sometimes necessary for placement into Jazz Band I, especially if there are multiple rhythm section players or many horn players. This group performs at all festival performances in and out of state, community events, and school concerts, and it features mostly 8th graders and some 7th graders.
Motivated students that play non-traditional jazz band instruments in Jazz Band II but want to be in Jazz Band I are encouraged to double on a secondary instrument. Many of our concert band clarinet players double on saxophone in jazz band, as well as brass players who double (horn to trumpet, tuba to trombone, etc.). Drummers are utilized in multiple ways on auxiliary percussion parts and vibes, if there are two drummers in a group.
Communication with Students and Parents
In most situations, the school jazz band will meet outside of the normal school hours. It is up to the director to establish when rehearsals will take place and communicate this clearly to both the students and parents ahead of time. How often will the rehearsals take place and for how long? Will they be before school or after school? Can sectionals be mixed in with full band rehearsals? I have found that rehearsals before school have been most effective in our middle school jazz program. The school building tends to be quieter, the younger students come to school fresh and ready to play, and many potential conflicts can be avoided (sports practices, clubs, etc.). At NSMS, our Jazz Band I members rehearse twice per week for 30 minutes, and our Jazz Band II members rehearse once per week before school. Occasionally, after school or before school sectionals may be added. Our school webpage is updated on a weekly basis, which includes practice resources and our upcoming rehearsal schedule. I will also send reminders via the Remind texting app to keep students and parents up to date on important events.
It is important to be up front with the added commitment it takes to be in an extracurricular musical group. Students and parents receive an information sheet with concert dates and the rehearsal schedule prior to our first rehearsal, which is signed by both the student and parent. Attendance is taken each rehearsal, and students are expected to arrive on time. We stress that everyone makes the extra commitment together (including the director). Students in our beginner/intermediate group must show a willingness to consistently be present and prepared to be considered for the advanced jazz group in following years.
Building Your Jazz Band
Method Books
There are many resources available for starting and maintaining a middle school jazz band. Just like for concert band, a wide variety of method book options are available that teach concepts in a clear, step by step approach. Since our middle school jazz program consists of a beginning, intermediate, and advanced group, I have found the following three methods to work well with each of the groups depending on experience and technical demands. Listed below are some of the jazz method books I have used with our middle school jazz bands:
Standard of Excellence: First Jazz Performance by Dean Sorenson, published by Kjos. This method book provides ten full jazz band charts at an easy level (grade 1/2) in a variety of styles. Scores are written out for flexible instrumentation (all instruments included), and the drum set part is even broken down so traditional percussion can be used. I have found this method to be useful with our youngest jazz students with no experience, usually during the second half of the year of beginning band. Rhythm patterns and a sample written solo are written out for each tune. All accompaniment tracks are free and can be downloaded from the Kjos website.
Essential Elements for Jazz Ensemble by Mike Steinel, published by Hal Leonard. This method book also provides some sample charts and arrangements, but there is a heavy emphasis on teaching and introducing playing in a swing style. Many exercises focus on correct jazz articulations and the use of scat syllables (dat, dah, bah, etc.). The technical demands in this method are a bit more advanced, so I have generally used this with my second year students playing in our intermediate middle school jazz band. This method comes with an audio CD accompaniment and is built into SmartMusic so full accompaniments/assessments are also available.
Standard of Excellence Jazz Ensemble Method by Dean Sorenson and Bruce Pearson, published by Kjos. Like the First Jazz Performance mentioned above, this method includes full band arrangements in a variety of styles such as funk, Latin, swing, and rock but at a higher grade level (grades 1-2). Each arrangement has rhythm studies, improvisation exercises, and a sample solo – all of which have play-a-long accompaniments available online for free and in SmartMusic. I use this method with my most advanced middle school jazz band and usually include at least one arrangement from this book for each of our concerts throughout the school year.
Warm-ups
Having relevant and user-friendly warm-ups are an important part of rehearsing our middle school jazz bands with a limited amount of rehearsal time before school. There are many published warm-ups available, and some are included in the above-mentioned Standard of Excellence Jazz Ensemble Method including long tones, lips slurs, and scale exercises.
At NSMS, we use Jazz Warm-ups by John Edmondson, published by Hal Leonard. This warmup approach features two simple long tone warm-ups based on a swing style Bb blues, and a rock style F blues, as well as a jazz ballad. There are various rhythms that can be applied to the harmonies as well. We use these warm-ups as a basis for learning the blues form, blues scale and harmonies, call and response, and creating our own arrangements with various blues heads (melodies).
Part of our warm-up places emphasis on listening to great soloists and bands, both from audio recordings and from videos (YouTube). We will often discuss time feel, stylistic considerations, tone quality and so on and often connect those concepts to what we are working on in rehearsal. All of our jazz students are strongly encouraged to listen and check players out at home.
Repertoire and Preparation
In addition to the various jazz method books available with arrangements, it is important to choose repertoire featuring exposure to a variety of styles. We continue to stress balance and blend and good dynamic contrast, as in the concert band. Spend time with your rhythm section to be sure that not only steady time is being kept, but that they are listening and locking in with one another as a cohesive unit. This may require extra sectionals with just the rhythm section. All of our students are expected to practice and prepare outside of rehearsal and spend time using the resources provided, especially audio files and recordings. There are many jazz arrangements available for young bands that provide great opportunities for learning a variety of styles and are fun to play. The following is a sample list of some arrangements we have done at NSMS mostly with our Jazz Band I students. They categorized by style and many are built into SmartMusic:
Swing Blues Arrangements
Blues March by Carl Strommen
Escalator Blues by Jeff Darrohn
Gospel Blues by Jeff Darrohn
Latin Arrangements
Agua de Beber by Jobim/arr. Berry
Bossa de Cancun by Mike Steinel
Latinova by Lennie Neihaus
Niobe by Vince Gassi
Ballads
Autumn Mist (solo alto sax or trumpet feature) by Larry Neeck. (slow rock ballad)
It’s Been a Long, Long Time by Russ Michaels. (swing style Basie ballad)
Past My Bedtime by Terry White. (swing style Basie ballad)
Rock Arrangements
Burritos to Go by Victor Lopez. (Latin Rock)
Mystic Traveler by Michael Sweeney
Pacific Attitude by Vince Gassi
Time to Testify by Jeff Jarvis
Funk Arrangements
J.B. Rides Again by Rick Stitzel
Please Don’t Climb on the Iguana by Dean Sorenson
Steep and Deep by Jeff Jarvis
Work Song by Adderley, arr. Dana (swing shuffle)
Final Thoughts
Developing a thriving middle school jazz program provides a multitude of benefits for the instrumental program as a whole. Jazz bands provide additional instrumental instruction to reinforce musical concepts from concert band within a smaller setting. They help to expand new musical concepts such as learning different styles and improvisation. Finally, offering jazz bands builds upon the natural enthusiasm many young students have – kids want to play! Providing fun and educational ensemble experiences helps with retaining students and recruiting new students to your program. I hope that the ideas in this article will help to make your jazz program a rewarding and meaningful experience for you and your jazz students.
