The Route 66 Revelers

New Orleans-style Jazz--Jazz That's Fun!

Our Educational Mission

Many jazz festivals and maybe most jazz-education programs act as if jazz started in the 1940s with bebop. They may acknowledge that the roots of jazz go back past the big-band swing era, but they don't play that music or teach the kind of improvisation that's at the heart of traditional jazz. So to encourage trad jazz as a living tradition, we've played at elementary and middle schools in the area. Most of the kids have never heard our kind of music, but unless they've gotten old enough that they have to play cool, they can't help but clap, shout, and even dance in the lunchroom aisles.

In conjunction with the Rio Grande Jazz Society, for the past couple of years our original trombonist, Phil Arnold, with help from music director Chris Williams and occasional participation of other band members, have been sponsoring classes for young teenagers. In these classes they learn to listen to other members of the ensemble, learn the components of the chords, and find notes on the fly that fit the tune. It's great experience in musical training of a sort kids may not get by playing in bands where they just read notes off a page.