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| Image courtesy walterdeanmyers.net |
Jazz by Walter Dean Myers is a collection of fifteen poems that recreate the experience of jazz music. From the opening poem that
summons the drumming rhythms of jazz’s African heritage to the poem “Three Voices” that highlights jazz instruments like the bass, piano, and horn, each poem presents an experience with the rhythms and emotions of jazz music.
The language of Jazz gives readers a sense of the motivating power of jazz music. The verbs Myers uses all portray active, vibrant movement. For example, in “Good-bye to Old Bob Johnson,” Myers employs verbs like “swinging,” “singing,” “stepping,” and “dipping” to describe the actions of the mourners. Even in a serious occasion like a funeral procession, the people are so filled with emotion they can’t help but move to the music.
Myers further connects the subject of jazz music with his poetry through his use of sound devices in each of the poems. He uses different forms of rhyme and repetition to create a jazz rhythm in each poem. In “Stride,” he accomplishes this by combining both internal and end rhyme with repeated words as he starts the poem:
We got jiving in our bones, and it won’t leave use alone--we’re really moving
Jiving bones
We got pride in our stride, and we know it’s all the style--we’re steady grooving
Pride stride.
The visuals in Jazz provide another layer to the power and emotion conveyed by the language. Myers’s son, Christopher created bold images of musicians and instruments with bright colored backgrounds by layering black ink on acetate over acrylic paintings to create striking illustrations with depth and richness. Even the typography of the poems includes multiple fonts and colors emphasizes key lines of the poems and adds movement to the words.
Jazz begins with an introduction to jazz music and its history and closes with a glossary of jazz and a jazz timeline, providing nonfiction text features to support the historical significance of jazz music and the jazz artists noted in the poems. The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor book and ALA Notable Children’s Book is a beautiful library or classroom resource to connect music, painting, poetry, and history.
summons the drumming rhythms of jazz’s African heritage to the poem “Three Voices” that highlights jazz instruments like the bass, piano, and horn, each poem presents an experience with the rhythms and emotions of jazz music.
The language of Jazz gives readers a sense of the motivating power of jazz music. The verbs Myers uses all portray active, vibrant movement. For example, in “Good-bye to Old Bob Johnson,” Myers employs verbs like “swinging,” “singing,” “stepping,” and “dipping” to describe the actions of the mourners. Even in a serious occasion like a funeral procession, the people are so filled with emotion they can’t help but move to the music.
Myers further connects the subject of jazz music with his poetry through his use of sound devices in each of the poems. He uses different forms of rhyme and repetition to create a jazz rhythm in each poem. In “Stride,” he accomplishes this by combining both internal and end rhyme with repeated words as he starts the poem:
We got jiving in our bones, and it won’t leave use alone--we’re really moving
Jiving bones
We got pride in our stride, and we know it’s all the style--we’re steady grooving
Pride stride.
The visuals in Jazz provide another layer to the power and emotion conveyed by the language. Myers’s son, Christopher created bold images of musicians and instruments with bright colored backgrounds by layering black ink on acetate over acrylic paintings to create striking illustrations with depth and richness. Even the typography of the poems includes multiple fonts and colors emphasizes key lines of the poems and adds movement to the words.
Jazz begins with an introduction to jazz music and its history and closes with a glossary of jazz and a jazz timeline, providing nonfiction text features to support the historical significance of jazz music and the jazz artists noted in the poems. The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor book and ALA Notable Children’s Book is a beautiful library or classroom resource to connect music, painting, poetry, and history.
Example Poem
It’s Jazz
I hear the call of the cornet
I hear a swinging clarinet
They’re playing HOT jazz in the heat
Of old New Orleans
The rattling banjo pays its dues
To the Preservation blues
They’re playing HOT jazz in the heat
Of old New Orleans
There’s a crazy syncopation
And it’s tearing through the nation
And it’s bringing sweet elation
To every single tune
It’s jazz
There’s a drummer rat-a-tatting
There’s a patent shoe that’s patting
While a laid-back cat is scatting
About flying to the moon
It’s jazz
In the HEAT of New Orleans
Activity
To introduce this poem to students, begin by playing a little jazz music for students to get a feel for the musical style. You might play one of the jazz musicians named in the poems, like Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, or you might select an artist from the jazz timeline at the end, such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, or Benny Goodman.
As an extension after reading the poem, allow students to make their own percussion instruments like tin can drums, sand blocks, water bottle rattles, or even a homemade didgeridoo. Then, either as a whole class, in small groups, or even as individuals, students can practice the rhythm of the poem with their instruments and perform their own interpretation of this poem or other poems from Jazz.
