JAM: December 2006 / January 2007 Issue: Feature Story

Kids City Young Audiences Gets Kids To Swing!

By Roger Atkinson

Want to have some fun? Get Carol Comer to tell you about “her kids” about how she has them scatting and playing the blues, learning rhythms and some jazz history, too. Better yet, maybe you can be lucky and go watch for yourself like I did.

The Young Audiences catalog is immense, covering a wide range of visual and performing arts for students from pre-school to college. (Visit www.kcya.org and be wowed.) For example, there are six different jazz related workshops; teachers
include Comer (she has three different workshops), Lisa Henry, Bird Fleming, and members of the Jazz Machine.

I watched Carol work her magic with Stefanie Adams’ third-grade music classes at Ray Marsh Elementary School in the Shawnee Mission School District. She brought along instruments: a bass guitar, a snare drum, a xylophone, and other
percussion instruments. During the course of the hour class, all of the students play the instruments. She does three different “sets”: an Afro-Cuban portion in which she tells the story of how the drums came to the West; a piece on Kansas City Jazz, where the students learn to play the blues on “Kansas City”; and a ragtime section where the student are introduced to Scott Joplin. It’s fast-moving, interactive, and, sure enough, the students play all of the instruments when they learn how to play the blues.

“You can hit any key with the red dots,” Carol lets the students know, “they are all the right notes.” On another song, it’s the black keys that are fine. On the blues, it’s all about the order that the strings are plucked on the electric guitar.

“I’ve been on the roster since about l986,” Carol told me. “Lisa Henry does a vocal jazz workshop. I do too, called “Scat That” for high school and college students. Bird Fleming has a great African drumming group—it’s outstanding; there’s a brass
ensemble, wind ensemble, you name it.

“Stefanie and I go way back to when the Shawnee Mission School District first got involved with KCYA/Arts Partners and several of us—teachers (including Stefanie), artists, Young Audiences staff, school district staff—brainstormed about how to
combine the study of Community with the Arts. I came up with an outline called ‘The Jazz Community’ and it has evolved from there. I have programs that cover K through college. My itsy-bitsy improv workshop (K, 1, 2) is called ‘ABCDE-Flat.’ My workshops began in Shawnee Mission, but expanded to
Kansas City, Missouri, Raytown, Excelsior Springs, Parkville, and several parochial schools. At some schools I work only with the choirs, and others only with the bands.”

Were the third-graders engaged? Absolutely! They were playing the blues! And their attention was such that they never really noticed the stranger in the back, taking notes, smiling, and snapping pictures.






	Search our site:		Kids City Young Audiences Gets Kids To Swing! By Roger Atkinson Want to have some fun? Get Carol Comer to tell you about “her kids” about how she has them scatting and playing the blues, learning rhythms and some jazz history, too. Better yet, maybe you can be lucky and go watch for yourself like I did. The Young Audiences catalog is immense, covering a wide range of visual and performing arts for students from pre-school to college. (Visit www.kcya.org and be wowed.) For example, there are six different jazz related workshops; teachers include Comer (she has three different workshops), Lisa Henry, Bird Fleming, and members of the Jazz Machine. I watched Carol work her magic with Stefanie Adams’ third-grade music classes at Ray Marsh Elementary School in the Shawnee Mission School District. She brought along instruments: a bass guitar, a snare drum, a xylophone, and other percussion instruments. During the course of the hour class, all of the students play the instruments. She does three different “sets”: an Afro-Cuban portion in which she tells the story of how the drums came to the West; a piece on Kansas City Jazz, where the students learn to play the blues on “Kansas City”; and a ragtime section where the student are introduced to Scott Joplin. It’s fast-moving, interactive, and, sure enough, the students play all of the instruments when they learn how to play the blues. “You can hit any key with the red dots,” Carol lets the students know, “they are all the right notes.” On another song, it’s the black keys that are fine. On the blues, it’s all about the order that the strings are plucked on the electric guitar. “I’ve been on the roster since about l986,” Carol told me. “Lisa Henry does a vocal jazz workshop. I do too, called “Scat That” for high school and college students. Bird Fleming has a great African drumming group—it’s outstanding; there’s a brass ensemble, wind ensemble, you name it. “Stefanie and I go way back to when the Shawnee Mission School District first got involved with KCYA/Arts Partners and several of us—teachers (including Stefanie), artists, Young Audiences staff, school district staff—brainstormed about how to combine the study of Community with the Arts. I came up with an outline called ‘The Jazz Community’ and it has evolved from there. I have programs that cover K through college. My itsy-bitsy improv workshop (K, 1, 2) is called ‘ABCDE-Flat.’ My workshops began in Shawnee Mission, but expanded to Kansas City, Missouri, Raytown, Excelsior Springs, Parkville, and several parochial schools. At some schools I work only with the choirs, and others only with the bands.” Were the third-graders engaged? Absolutely! They were playing the blues! And their attention was such that they never really noticed the stranger in the back, taking notes, smiling, and snapping pictures. RETURN TO DECEMBER 2006/JANUARY 2007 MAIN INDEX © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2006. All rights reserved.