Kids and Jazz is a forty-five minute to an hour show that juggles music, story telling, and audience participation. It is designed for kids but fun and informative for adults too. Kids can be in the audience alone. But since the show is very interactive, (a lot of audience participation!) parents are welcome!
The main part of the show will involve stories with music examples. Character sketches of different jazz musicians will be told to tell about the history of jazz. The stories are made to bring kids closer to knowing who the musicians were, and also about the culture that bore it.
Stories with music from Gershwin, Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Ornette Coleman, will be used. Why these musicians? .
These stories with fun music examples will be used.
When George Gershwin was a schoolboy he was a problem child, even a kind of a punker. He often skipped school to play on the street. His brother, Ira, was the good boy who got a piano from his parents. But life in families don’t always turn out who one expects. Shortly after the piano was lifted into the Gershwin’s second floor apartment, George sat down to play, and surprised everyone, including himself, with his talent. His brother found that he was good with words…
Duke Ellington was one of the coolest guys in jazz. And he was so good with people that he collected an amazing bunch of musicians to play with him. And along with the piano, his band was his instrument. He had different sounds in his band. For example the wah wah trumpet.
Louis Armstrong lived in an orphanage because his mother couldn’t afford to have him. The children earned money by performing on the street. That’s where Satchmo learned to play and sing…
Ornette Coleman is a real ‘outsider’ story. He couldn’t fit in with the other musicians because he either heard music differently or just didn’t understand how it ‘should’ go…
The show will end with audience participation
This way of presenting jazz is respectful to the music, the culture, and to the children. It brings a few legendary figures in jazz in a context that the kids can relate to, it presents some good music, and it inspires the audience to try too feel the music, in its beautiful, spontaneous, playfulness.
Find a video of Cobra for kids as an jewish music related example:
You can easily see that Paul Brody has a lot of experience with music for children when you see his activities over the last few years.
- Paul Brody produced his own’s children’s radio feature about music for WDR ‚Musikselbermachen‘ and wrote and produced the monthly show for a year.
- Furthermore he was writing a children’s show about music for SWR, KlangKueche for three years.
- Best of Children’s Music. Paul Brody´s music is featured on a EMI/Virgin Records collection.
- In Boston he wrote and designed a children’s presentation about poetry, „The Power of Words“ for kids in inner city schools.
- Two CDs on Oetinger Verlag. Paul wrote the music, texts and produced the CDs with his kids and kids in the neighborhood. Over thirty kids and about twenty musicians, including musicians from the Gentleman Band, Brave Old World, Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird, The Rainbirds…
Interview with Oetinger Kinderbuchverlag