FRS 002S — Sec. 001 — (2 unit) — CRN 55919 — F 1:10 – 4:00pm — 1 Olson
Jazz and Literature

Instructor: Andy Jones, University Writing Program, College of Letters and Science

Description: “Jazz and Literature” will review two traditions that remain largely unexplored by students attending UC Davis and most other universities: The heroes, social history, and music of Jazz; and those works of American Literature which are most informed by Jazz subjects, sensibilities, and recordings. Our review of the Jazz tradition will focus primarily on the greatest Jazz composers and performers (Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, (Ella) Fitzgerald, Parker, Davis, and Coltrane), while our literary studies will focus mostly on those short story authors and poets who write about (or “through”) Jazz: F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age, Langston Hughes and the music of the Harlem Renaissance, James Baldwin and the representations of bebop in “Sonny’s Blues,” Beat Icons Jack Kerouac and Kenneth Patchen and their improvisations recorded with Jazz, and the Jazz essays written by LeRoi Jones/ Amiri Baraka in the 1960s and 1970s.

Students will meet in the computer classroom for four primary reasons:
a. To take advantage of my co-written web-published substantive lectures on “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes. These are ready for review by prospective students at http://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/jazzandliterature.html
b. To review and present assigned and discovered recordings independently (that is, with headphones and with visually and aurally rich presentations, respectively).
c. To review assigned and recommended texts available on the web
d. To review web-available representations of Jazz created by experts such as Ken Burns, the Lincoln Center in New York City, and the Jazz Studies Program at Rutgers University.

Format: The seminar will meet at 1 Olson on Fridays from 1:10-4:00 for eight weeks. Participating students must attend all class meetings, read all assigned texts, co-create a collaborative project and presentation, and complete the smaller weekly writing assignments. During week seven of the quarter, students will also read a relevant poem and discuss their research for the class with the instructor on the radio. Finally, students will write a 1500 word essay that comments meaningfully on the relationship between the work of an author and a Jazz musician. Each student will purchase a class reader at Copyland on “G” Street in Davis. So many faculty from across campus have expressed interest in this class that I may augment class discussions with guest lectures on others’ favorite recordings.

Grading: In-Class Writing Exercises 20%
Collaborative report and presentation 30%
Oral Exam 10%
Final Paper (about five pages) 40%

About the Instructor: Andy Jones has taught for the UC Davis Department of English since 1990. In addition to teaching classes on poetry, film theory, literary criticism, the Beat Generation, and writing in the professions, Andy co-created “Jazz and Literature” as part of the UC College Prep Initiative. Always interested in cross-disciplinary thinking and studies, Andy interviews many authors, musicians and pundits as host of “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour” on radio station KDVS.