In the mid 1930s, during the height of the depression, the old sweeter music styles abruptly turned to music with an edge. Old melodies were abandoned for bigger, broader, more boisterous renditions of old standard favorites. The public was thirsty for something to feel good about and they drank in jazz as quickly as it poured through radio airwaves and flowed out of concert halls.

How to celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM):

• Attend a concert by your local high school or college jazz band.
• Listen to a jazz CD that is new to you. Try to stretch your ears. If you need some guidance, consult The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, or Tom Piazza’s Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz.
• Read a good book on jazz.
• Find a new jazz Web site.
• Listen to a radio station that plays genuine jazz.
• Go to “This Date in Jazz History” pick an anniversary, and find some music by that musician to explore.
• Pay a pilgrimage to your favorite jazz city, to a jazz museum, or to a musician’s birthplace or gravesite.
• View Satchmo, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Straight No Chaser, or another jazz documentary or performance video.
• Listen to the jazz offerings on the radio, or find your local NPR station.
• Log onto a distant jazz radio station on the Web. For example, KKJZ, WBGO, WDUQ, or WWOZ.
• If you travel in the United States, use The Da Capo Jazz and BluesLover’s Guide to the U.S., by Christiane Bird, as your guide to jazz clubs and historical locations in 25 cities.
• Join your local jazz society (for a list, visit www.smithsonianjazz.org). If none exists in your community, organize one.
• Read a jazz magazine, such as Down Beat, Jazz Times, or Jazziz. Others include: Cadence, Jazz Education Journal, Jazz Improv, The Mississippi Rag: The Voice of Traditional Jazz and Ragtime, and from Canada, Coda, Planet Jazz, and The Jazz Report.
• Host a jazz listening session in your home or a jazz-themed party in honor of a favorite musician, or to celebrate jazz in general.
• Read a jazz-related poem—such as those in The Jazz Poetry Anthology, edited by Sascha Feinstein and Yusef Komunyakaa or their The Second Set: The Jazz Poetry Anthology, Volume 2.
• View and think about jazz-related artwork. How does the artwork express jazz culture or the artist’s interpretation of jazz language? For an example of jazz-related artwork, look in Seeing Jazz: Artists and Writers on Jazz.

All you parents out there, Jazz is not just for adults.  Get your kids interested in this national treasure by taking them to hear a “live” jazz concert.  Try playing jazz music while driving in the car or in your home – try different pieces and when you find something they like consider other songs by the same artist.

There are also “kid-friendly” websites like www.smithsonianjazz.org and www.ArtsEdge.kennedy-center.org that you and your child can visit and enjoy.

Read to your young child. If you are the parent of a child aged 4-8, read (or get your child to read) The Jazz Fly by Matthew Gollub and Karen Hanke, The Sound That Jazz Makes by Carole Boston Weatherford and Eric Velasquez, Once Upon a Time in Chicago: The Story of Benny Goodman by Jonah Winter and Jeanette Winter, If I Only Had a Horn: Young Louis Armstrong by Roxane Orgill and Leonard Jenkins, or Chris Raschka’s Mysterious Thelonious or Charlie Parker Played Be Bop.

And, lastly contact your local jazz society to see if it offers a jazz education program.

Resource: Smithsonian Jazz.