Challenge Yourself with Related Activities for Further Study

 

Participation in the following extra-credit activities will give you a more well-rounded understanding of jazz, its history, and its contemporary audiences:

 

Multimedia Jazz

Attend a jazz concert.

Download free jazz MP3s.

Listen to music broadcasting from your local jazz radio station.

Visit a jazz photo-gallery. Do these images capture the energy of a live performance?

View original jazz art.

Read about jazz history.

Read about the Harlem Renaissance.

Rent or borrow from library the PBS Ken Burns documentary: Jazz.

 

Additional Writing and Thinking Opportunities:

Compare the narrator of Tillie Olsen's "As I Stand Here Ironing" and the narrator of "Sonny's Blues."

Read Alice Walker's "Everyday Use." Consider ways it can be compared to "Sonny's Blues." Think about the relationship between the sisters and how it compares to the brothers' relationship in "Sonny's Blues." What sorts of responsibilities do the different sets of siblings feel toward each other? What are the parents' roles in each story? Then consider the two art forms the stories treat: jazz music in "Sonny's Blues" and quilting in "Everyday Use." Many people consider these artforms indigenous to the African American community. What do these arts mean to the characters in each story?

Write a report one one or more of the following figures in Jazz, Blues, or African-American History, Literature, or Culture, and present it as a resource toy our peers participating in the threaded discussion group:

Authors

Countee Cullen

Richard Wright

Ralph Ellison

Zora Neale Hurston

Jean Toomer

Claude McKay

Ted Joans

Musicians

John Coltrane

Thelonius Monk

Miles Davis

Josephine Baker

Bessie Smith

Dizzie Gilespie

Marian Anderson

 

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