Five Minutes to love Jazz

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course will use the New York Times series, “5 Minutes that will make you love jazz” to study the history of jazz, jazz masters and American culture. In that series musicians, music critics (writers) and historians surveyed the history of different musicians. We will walk along their musical journeys and the history of their times and music. Among those we will explore are Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. We will study themes such as the jazz piano, jazz bass, tenor sax, South African, Brazilian and Cuban Jazz and Black musicians who moved to European ports seeking a better life. The class will be divided with one day listening to the music and the second day discussing the New York Times articles and assigned readings.