Workshop I: “Free Improvisation, a Great Place to Start”

How can we use free improvisation to free up our voice and project our energy through our horn? From the rustling of leaves to the last breath of the last dinosaur, this workshop lets go of the binding rules of chord changes and song forms, and demonstrates more open structures that provide direction and organization yet allow musicians at any skill or experience level to experience the flow of masterful and meaningful improvisation in real time.

Workshop II: Jazz and Drama

See Day 2′s workshop description.

Workshop I: “The Blues is the Roots and Everything Else is the Fruits”

Eli Yamin has seen the blues touch people of all backgrounds in his experience touring around the world and working with students of all ages from Mississippi to Mali to Montenegro to Mumbai. In this workshop, Eli helps students contact their inner blues musician. African American cultural traditions of the stomp/clap, the shuffle, and the spiritual, are embraced as universal tools for expressing a wide range of feelings. Students emerge with new tools to play the blues, both vocally and instrumentally and understand the blues as a lifelong source of inspiration, meaning and encouragement in their study of music and beyond.

Workshop II: Jazz and Drama

What opportunities does the language of jazz bring to telling stories? How can telling stories with jazz make blues, bebop and swing, useful, positive and essential lifelong tools for self and group expression for today’s youth and adults?

Drawing on his extensive experience creating and producing jazz musicals with children, Eli Yamin will guide participants to discover the magic of telling stories in the language of jazz by combining instrumental and vocal music with dance and theatre.

Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival
Moscow, Idaho

Jazz in the Schools: The Magic and Mechanics of Jazz with Eli Yamin

The Magic and Mechanics of Jazz (Grades K-6) with Eli Yamin (performer, composer, educator, and co-founder of The Jazz Drama Program) and his trio. The Magic and Mechanics of Jazz invites young audiences to discover the magic of jazz by actively participating in the mechanics that make it happen. The magical music of Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Scott Joplin and Elizabeth Cotten, as well as pieces specifically commissioned for the program, inspire students to sing, stomp, clap, and scat. Workshops and residencies are also available.