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 tried several things:

Several of us participate in "learning jams" sponsored by the Rio Grande Jazz Society. These sessions take place at the German-American Club,4821 Menaul NE, on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Songs we do come mostly from the American Music Caravan Dixieland fake book, volume 1. Anyone desiring to learn to improvise, beginner to pro, is welcome to come.

The Route 66 Revelers have played traditional (trad) jazz at elementary and middle schools in the area. Most of the kids have never heard this 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 a few years our original trombonist, Phil Arnold, with help from music director Chris Williams and occasional participation of other band members, sponsored classes for young teenagers. In these classes they learned to listen to other members of the ensemble, learned the components of the chords, and found 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.