- ACHYUT MUJOO
To be entirely honest, attending an event that calls itself "Jazz for Kids" is not how I typically imagine myself spending a Saturday afternoon. Jokes aside however, had I really felt that way, I would have seriously missed out on so much inspiration, wisdom, and the pure joy of listening to and appreciating music as a shared experience.Jazz for kids brought exactly what it had promised, but also so much more. It was meant to introduce young kids (or unfamiliar adults) to the spirit of Jazz. And it did that with so much enthusiasm, and an energy so infectious that you had no choice but to participate with all your attention.
The host, saxophonist Rolf Delfos began by introducing the audience to how a typical Jazz ensemble operates, and the role each instrument is supposed to play within it. He explained how Jazz is an improvised form of music, traditionally learned aurally as opposed to being read from a sheet. The band also demonstrated how improvisation works in the context of Jazz; how there is usually an agreed upon form that the musicians take turns improvising over. The form is also however, not always set in stone and musicians often play around with it and expand upon it while improvising.This was all done as musicians of the highest calibre played popular Jazz tunes, or standards, demonstrating the ideas and concepts that they talked about. They also encouraged willing audience members to get on stage and improvise along with them. Truly an awe-inspiring experience!
Personally, for me, attending this event reinforced the idea that consumption of music, or art in general can never be a passive act. A diligent audience actively listens, understands, internalizes and feels the music just as much as the musicians playing it. The audience was made to actively participate by the musicians on stage, willing or not. Tapping your feet, feeling the groove, singing the melody, these are all skills that are important to musicians and listeners alike. An audience member that can do these things is essentially more in touch with the music, and has much more to gain from it, is what I personally believe. Music is after all a means of expression and communication, a language, so to speak. To understand bigger structures - sentences, paragraphs, you need to be able to make sense of the building blocks - the alphabet, vocabulary, and grammar. And I believe that music also works in a very similar fashion.
I wish that more people would get to experience things like this often. In a world with an over-abundance of music, conscious consumption of it has become a lost art. I'm so glad that the school is making an attempt to change this by organising such events. Incredibly happy that I got to be a part of it this time, and hope that there's more to come!
Thank you to everyone at One World!
~Achyut Mujoo
Achyut is a senior student of Guitar & Ensembles at One World College of Music