Riffs and Raps — A Community-based After-School Jazz Program for At-Risk Youth
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Saxophonist and "Riffs and Raps" co-leader Arni Cheatham and his students check the video as they rehearse for the program's closing performance at the Dudley Library last May. |
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"Riffs and Raps" co-leader and trombonist Bill Lowe does some last-minute coaching for the final performance. |
"Riffs and Raps" is an innovative after-school program that engages young people in exploring the life of their community and their own creativity through the medium of jazz. Designed for middle-school students in underserved communities, the program content can be adapted to the needs of different populations, organizations, and venues while the core philosophy and curriculum remain constant:
- The program is delivered to young people where they are — in a library branch, community center, school, or other neighborhood setting — and the content is closely tied to their community.
- The program is conducted by master teacher/performers selected by JazzBoston for both their extensive experience developing jazz curricula for young people and their inspirational skills.
- A series of hands-on interactive workshops employ multi-disciplines — spoken word and visual art as well as music — and multi-media to keep all the participants actively engaged at all times, whether or not they are musicians.
- The program begins and ends with performance. The opening performance, an interactive event in which the teachers introduce themselves and the program to the students, their families, and neighbors, is an important recruiting tool; the closing performance puts the students up front as part of an ensemble with their teachers and other professional musicians.
In addition to providing at-risk youth with a stimulating educational and artistic experience during after-school hours, the program is designed to be a growth experience that changes the participants' perceptions of themselves, their community, and the learning process.
BPL Partnership for the '08 Pilot
JazzBoston began development of the program model in partnership with the Boston Public Library, funded by a $5,000 grant from the BPL Foundation. A pilot program was conducted last spring in the Library's Dudley and Codman Square branches by Arni Cheatham and Bill Lowe, two highly respected and dedicated jazz musicians and educators. During four weekly workshops, groups of roughly 10 students each engaged in games, exercises, and mini-presentations requiring intense participation. For example:
- In early sessions, students used straws to understand the way the saxophone reed works; made their own rhythm instruments, then played them; and performed simple body and voice gestures in response to a trombone to learn the basic element of jazz solo/conversation.
- In the Name Song game, students used a video projection of a keyboard and a fairly complex set of manipulations of the alphabet and the chromatic scale to create melodies from their own names.
- After some preparation in the technique of taking oral histories, students conducted and recorded an interview with a professional musician living in Codman Square, in which they asked very probing questions and absorbed a wealth of information about jazz in Roxbury as a part of jazz in the wider world.
For the final performance, held in week 5 and entitled "Stories with Music/Music with Stories," the students, backed by Cheatham, Lowe, and a 3-piece rhythm section, performed stories they had created based on photographic images of their neighborhood, personal narratives, and pure flights of imagination. Their pride was visible, and the audience of family, friends, and neighbors was deeply moved. Click here to see snapshots from the workshops and the closing performance
JazzBoston and the Boston Public Library are exploring possibilities for delivering the program through additional branches over the longer term. With more time and access to more sophisticated equipment, the core curriculum developed in 2008 can easily be expanded by deepening work on selected components and adding new ones, in particular, video recording.
New Partnerships to Extend the Program in '09
With "Riffs and Raps," JazzBoston aims to create a model that can be gradually refined and extended in collaboration with different partners to provide a year-round after-school resource that meets the needs of our city's youth and their communities. Following the successful completion of the BPL pilot program last spring, JazzBoston was invited to partner with two well established and highly regarded nonprofit organizations, Music & Youth Initiative and Citizen Schools, to adapt "Riffs and Raps" to their own platforms.
Citizen Schools operates a national network of after-school programs for middle-school students that has become a model for re-imagining learning and strengthening communities. In the city of Boston, where it was founded in 1995, the organization operates 11-week "apprenticeship" programs out of eight public schools and has worked with more than 8,000 low-income students. With Citizen Schools' support, JazzBoston is currently seeking funding to introduce "Riffs and Raps" in a Roxbury and a Dorchester middle-school next fall and then replicate the program in underserved communities citywide as quickly as resources allow.
Working through a network of Music Clubhouses in Boys and girls Clubs, YMCA's, and other community based organizations, Music & Youth Initiative provides underserved young people with after-school music education and enrichment programs designed build their self-confidence and interpersonal skills while fostering their appreciation of music. Each clubhouse typically serves hundreds of low-income youth. With support from M&YI's founder and executive director, JazzBoston is seeking funding to bring "Riffs and Raps" to music clubhouses at the Blue Hill and Roxbury Boys and Girls Clubs next spring.
If you would like information about supporting or sponsoring JazzBoston’s "Riffs and Raps" program for underserved middle school students, please click here.
JazzBoston Team Members
In addition to Arni Cheatham and William Lowe, the JazzBoston team developing the after-school program includes Pamela Seigle, Executive Director of Courage & Renewal Northeast, former Library trustee, and member of JazzBoston's Advisory Council; Emmett G. Price III, Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Northeastern University, JazzBoston board member, and a leading authority on hip-hop culture and the youth generation; and Pauline Bilsky, JazzBoston's Executive Director and President.
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