His100A
Jazz History — The Roots of Jazz
and Early Jazz, Pre-1900 – 1919
3 units
This course examines the influences of West
African, Caribbean, South American, Asian and
European music and culture on the development
of jazz pre-1900, and on the early music of New
Orleans that became known to the world as
jazz by 1917. The course focuses on the West
African conceptual approaches, practices, and
cultural conventions that form the foundation of
jazz, and its origins in spirituals, blues, ragtime
and other African-American sacred and secular
music. The development of jazz is studied within
the historical context of American social forces
including post-bellum segregation, the industrial
boom and the Great Black Migration, World
War I, and the invention of the radio and sound
recordings.
3 hours lecture, 1 hour listening lab

His100B
Jazz History — Style and Culture
in America from 1920 – 1940
3 units
A survey of early jazz styles, from the Jazz Age
of the Prohibition era, through the reign of the
swing bands and the jitterbug, to the pre-World
War II modern jazz jam sessions in Harlem.
The music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington,
Charlie Parker and many others is studied within
the contexts of the post-World War I economic
boom, the Great Depression, ballrooms and
big bands, the rise of sound motion pictures,
American musical theater and the Great American
Songbook, among other socioeconomic
and cultural touchstones.
3 hours lecture, 1 hour listening lab

His200A
Jazz History — Style and Culture
in America from 1941 – 1959
3 units
This course explores jazz as an art form, with
a focus on the musical innovations of modern
jazz through the beginnings of free jazz. Styles
including bebop, hard bop, funk, Latin jazz,
cool jazz, and other styles created by Dizzy
Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Max
Roach, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Art Blakey’s
and Horace Silver’s Jazz Messengers, Ornette
Coleman and many of their collaborators are
examined, focusing on instrumental grouping,
structural, harmonic and rhythmic creativity,
and folk influences. Students draw connections
between the mid-century impact of
World War II, the Atomic Age and the Cold
War, the hegemony of television, advertising,
the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and
other historical epochs upon
the evolution of jazz.
3 hours lecture, 1 hour listening lab

His200B
Jazz History — Style and Culture
in America from 1960 – Present
3 units
This course surveys the range of idioms and
subgenres of post-Coltrane jazz, particularly
the evolution of free jazz with the AACM, the
1970s New York Loft Scene, jazz in Europe,
the music and ideas of Wynton Marsalis
juxtaposed with the electronic fusion music
of Miles Davis and his collaborators, Herbie
Hancock, Weather Report, Chick Corea, et
al, and the return of jazz to its dance origins.
The steady influx of global influences from
traditional and contemporary musicians from
Africa, Asia, and the New World continues to
infuse a diverse range of compositional styles,
forms and instruments into the jazz world.
3 hours lecture, 1 hour listening lab

His105
New Orleans: The Birthplace of Jazz
Elective — 2 units
A course tracing the musical influence of the
international port of New Orleans, the melting
pot for music innovation and cultural exchange
that is the wellspring of the American art form,
jazz. Explores the African American experience
of cultural resilience through dance, singing and
drumming traditions that fused elements from
various cultures with gospel, blues and the Latin
tinge. Includes analysis of important recordings
as well as in-class performance of traditional
and modern New Orleans-style funeral marches,
street parades, brass bands and other music
employing improvisation, syncopation, call and
response and friendly competition that continue
to influence music throughout the world.
2 hours lecture/lab

His310A
The Jazz Singers
Elective — 2 units
A history class focusing on the legendary jazz
singers from the perspective of the first instrument,
the voice. Students listen to and learn
about a gamut of jazz singers and their greatest
contributions, beginning with the precursors of
jazz from work songs, field hollers, spirituals, rag
and blues, to the “holy trinity” — Billie Holiday,
Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald — on to jazz
today and its future. Students learn to identify
stylistic nuances unique to each artist as well
as become familiar with the important instrumentalists
supporting them. Lectures include an
overview of the social climate of each period,
fostering a greater understanding of how this
music was created and has evolved. Film shorts
of some of the renowned artists are shown
throughout the course. Students are asked to attend
and write reviews of two live jazz concerts.
2 hours lecture

His310B
The Jazz Singers
2 units
A continuation of His310A.

His330
Latin American Roots of Jazz
2 units (may also be taken as an Elective)
A survey course designed to deliver a thorough
perspective on the evolution and relevance of
the all-important, yet rarely discussed Afro-
Latino roots of jazz. Students examine the
pan-American, socio/political circumstances that
gave birth to Afro-Latino music and jazz, making
them branches of the same tree. Emphasis is
given to the historical development of the music
of Cuba, New York, and Puerto Rico which has
been especially influential. Students listen to
and view rare recordings, video clips and photographs
of “live” recordings in fields, mountains,
streets, homes, bars, theaters, dance halls,
ceremonies, and studios dating from the first
decade of the 1900s to the present. The music is
analyzed through lecture, listening and discussion
and broadens an understanding of jazz
from both stylistic and historical perspectives.
2 hours lecture