Music Study - Jazz

I used to be really good about picking a composer for us to study each month. I haven't done any formal music study with my kids in awhile. A lot of things have seemed to have changed this year. We have listened to music but it usually went along with the time period of history we are studying. And since this seems to be the way our composer study has been going this year and since we have reached the roaring 20's and the Jazz age, I figured it was a great time to introduce my kids to some Jazz. Not that I am a great fan of Jazz, but I can appreciate it and do enjoy listening to it.

So of course I found just about every book about Jazz in the picture book section of our library. 

 Here are a few more. But some of them made it into both pictures so it looks like more.

I really enjoyed the ones that came with a CD. It was nice to hear the actual singing and music of the time. I think the kids enjoyed the ones where I got to read and try to scat. They all got a good laugh. I think the best of the bunch were Jazz on a Saturday night (It came with a CD) and Ella Fitzgerald: a tale of a Vocal Virtuosa (the CD on this one too was a lot of fun to listen to. Ella's Big Chance: a Jazz age Cinderella didn't have much to do with Jazz but the illustrations are great! The rest were fun to read but I am glad I don't have to read scat very often it is almost harder than some Dr. Seuss.
I also picked up a few books about the history of the Radio. My kids know some of the early radio shows that they spoke about since I have downloaded many of the stories from Kiddie Records Weekly and they have been listening to them for years.

I can't say our Library had a large selection as far as jazz for kids goes. I guess I could have looked in that adult music section but I didn't. We listened to Cool Jazz 4 Cool Kids. Sophie loved hearing Alice in Wonderland music in a Jazz style. But this CD was rather slow and mellow and my kids wanted to dance so I also picked up the soundtrack to Swing Kids and we branched off into swing and the kids enjoyed the fast pace of this music.

I think I need to find some Benny Goodman and Glen Miller next. They will take us right into the WWII years. But first we need to study the hard years of the Great Depression. That is where we are going next. I have another stack of books for this time period too. I love my library!