Healdsburg Jazz presents the
2019 Jazz Village
and the Jazz Village Campus
No local institution has contributed more to fostering the social and cultural significance of jazz in America than the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. A critical part of Healdsburg Jazz’s mission is to preserve this art form, as history and a living musical legacy, for the next generation.
Join legions of jazz lovers, the City of Healdsburg, and the caring residents of our community during this year’s Festival at the Jazz Village and the new Jazz Village Campus— a free daytime education resource within the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, May 31-June 9, 2019.
Available to Everyone
Healdsburg and the surrounding areas are home to a diverse group of residents including a large Hispanic population and a large senior population. Many do not have the means to attend some of the ticketed festival concerts. Jazz Village will give everyone an opportunity to learn about the music and the musicians who create it, and to have an interactive jazz experience in which they can be entertained and educated. Programming will focus on styles for all ages and cultures, and provide both locals and concert attendees a gathering place to talk about jazz on a deeper, richer level.
Jazz Village was successfully launched in 2018 with the purpose of being a community-building hub integrated with the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. In 2019, Healdsburg Jazz will expand upon this theme with ten days packed with family-friendly events, including a daily schedule of live music featuring local and Bay Area musicians.
Also on the Jazz Village calendar are interactive art projects for children, jam sessions, festival musicians signing CDs, jazz radio hosts spinning records and talking about jazz history, an album/CD swap, an antique instrument exhibit, jazz dance and poetry performances, a communal art project commemorating the festival, and more. Some activities will be bilingual.
Located at West Plaza Park in downtown Healdsburg, Jazz Village runs from 12 noon to 5 p.m. every day of the Festival. And, new for 2019, the Jazz Village community education “Campus” will open on school days, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., concurrent with other Jazz Village events.
New Jazz Village Campus Especially for Our Schools
Healdsburg Jazz expands the Jazz Village in 2019 by adding a new and exciting dimension—the Jazz Village Campus—during school hours of Festival week. The mission of Jazz Village Campus is to engage students to participate in high-quality music learning experiences and to increase opportunities for music education at the school level.
Jazz Village Campus programs will be offered free to all schools in Healdsburg and Geyserville, ages pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, and provide additional resources to engage parents and prepare children for future concerts, school assemblies and music-making activities. Some classes will be bilingual, but music is a universal language that involves and inspires students at many levels. Each day there will be five to six programs that schools can choose from.
Jazz Village Campus workshops are designed by artists/educators who are highly experienced in teaching in public schools as well as being world-class artists, including some who come to perform at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. These workshops address the California Content Standards in music and other academic subject areas such as history, social studies and literacy.
The number of students participating per day will average 300 and the total for the week will be about 1,500 children enjoying and benefiting from the Jazz Village Campus.
Jazz Village Campus offerings include, but are not limited to, the following:
RHYTHM SECTION – Orchestrated by educator and musician Ami Molinelli
The Rhythm Section is a designated area that will have four programs running simultaneously with a teacher for each section.
- Putting it Together: Students will explore the power of sound and how sound manipulates feelings. Students will listen to a diverse array of sounds without any visual stimulation or clues, and be asked to distinguish sounds from everyday objects and varying percussion instruments as a way to practice the art of “percussion ear training.” They will learn to accompany a song from Africa while playing percussion rhythms. The goal is for students to develop listening skills, learn to connect everyday sounds with musical sounds, understand that any object can be used as an instrument, gain an awareness of patterns in sequence and when to start and end.
- Recycling Rhythms: This class will focus on the art of bucket drumming using unusual objects as instruments and creating rhythms. It will go over stick and hand techniques, independence, rudiments and composition, and the art of funk and buckets. The goal is for students to connect and apply what is learned in music to learning in other art forms and subject areas, and to hear rhythms in cultural contexts.
- The Rock Game: This class demonstrates how to work together as an ensemble or community. The Game is adapted from one that originated in Ghana, West Africa. The goal is to show that if one person is “out of sync” with the group, then the whole group falls apart—a metaphor for community and musical collaboration. Students will learn how everyone’s voice is important and how to communicate as an ensemble.
- Interactive Art Wall: Local artists will help students create art to recorded or live music with the intent to make a Jazz Village Campus mural. Some classes will be asked to create images based on a musical theme they are given ahead of time; other classes might be asked to create art based on the feeling they get from the music. If available, Festival musicians will visit and play music while the students are painting. The goal is to create art based on the concept of improvisation: “paint what you hear.”
MUSIC AND LITERACY AREA– with author and performer Matthew Gollub
Jazz Fly for (Pre K- 3rd grade) and Jazz Fly 2 for (up to 6th grade)
The creator of the award-winning Jazz Fly children’s books will treat students to rhythmic storytelling and drumming, engaging them with interactive percussion, writing, and tips on how to effectively manipulate individual sounds in the spoken word. Matthew Gollub performs renditions of his books and inspires students to read and write for pleasure. Children will relate because of his performance skills, akin to Hip-Hop, and his ability to “speak jazz” as well as speak Spanish. His program covers five State Language Arts Standards (reading, writing, listening, speaking and language) with verve! To maximize the educational value of his events, he shares lesson plans and other prep materials with teachers beforehand.
BLUES STAGE – with bluesman Guy Davis
In this program, called “Routes of the Blues,” Guy Davis explores two prominent styles of the Blues, Mississippi Delta and the Piedmont/East Coast forms, through storytelling and playing 6-string and 12-string guitars and harmonica. Incorporating geography, history and student interaction, Guy takes students on a journey that slices through a fascinating part of the American musical landscape. He will show how the primary blues instruments have their own language to best tell certain kinds of stories, expressing feelings of longing, heartache or humor. He shows by example how the blues as a musical form emerged from work songs. Students will participate in the rhythmic and kinesthetic experience of a work song by singing and moving.
PERCUSSION SONG AND DANCE WORKSHOP – with Tacuma King
African drum and dance master Tacuma King introduces students to jazz and its history, from its beginning in Africa to its assimilation into the Caribbean and South American cultures through its impact on current American culture and music. Using story, performance and participation with a variety of percussion instruments and hand drums, Tacuma has offered many after-school song and dance workshops in our area schools. He possesses an exuberant warmth and playful spirit that charms everyone who experiences his teaching.
Become a Valued Supporter of Healdsburg Jazz Village
Please join with the 21-year-strong Healdsburg Jazz Festival, the City of Healdsburg Community Services Department and a range of individuals and groups to support our 2019 Jazz Village.
Making performances available to everyone fosters a love and appreciation of music in all parts of our wonderfully diverse community. We also know that the more people understand the elements of jazz and personally participate with the music, the more they enjoy it, and the more they want to share the experience with friends and family.
Will you help bring the community together through music by your Giving Tuesday donation?
Call us today at 707.433.4633 to learn about sponsorship opportunities, or email info@healdsburgjazz.org.