Overview
This lesson uses video excerpts from the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates,
Jr. to explore the history of
racial diversity and intermingling in New Orleans, and how it gave rise to the
uniquely American art form of jazz.
The Introductory Activity introduces students to the
concept of specific places having a certain character it imparts to its
residents, and challenges them to consider the character of their own home
state. The Learning Activities use Dr. Gates’s video interviews with celebrated
jazz musicians Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. and a website from the
PBS series Jazz to examine
what it is about New Orleans’ history and character that makes it such a
uniquely vibrant American city with such a rich musical legacy. In the
Culminating Activity, students research three other American cities and prepare
Student Organizers discussing their unique characters and contributions to
jazz.
This lesson is best used as part of a unit of jazz history, New Orleans
history, or the cultural contributions of African Americans.
Objectives
After completing
this lesson, students will be able to:
- Discuss
what is meant by the specific “character” of different places.
- Outline
the history of New Orleans, and describe the different cultures which came to
find a home there.
- Describe
how the racial and ethnic diversity of New Orleans contributed to its vibrant
musical culture.
- Summarize
the character of their own home city or state.
Grade Level:
9-12
Suggested Time
(2) 45-minute class periods
Media Resources
Growing Up in New Orleans Video
A Willing Association Video
Becoming More Negroidal Video
Materials
For each group:
For the class:
Web Sites
The Birthplace of Jazz
The Lesson
Part I: INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY
- Ask
students if they think specific places have certain overarching “characters” which
shape those who live there. (Accept all answers.) What is it that gives
a place character? (Possible answers may
include food, climate, geography, ethnic and racial demographics, musical
tastes, and socio-economic status. Accept all answers, writing them on a
blackboard or whiteboard.)
- Divide
the class into groups of 2-3. Write the following prompts on a blackboard
or whiteboard and ask each group to spend five minutes discussing them and
developing responses.
- What do
you know about the origins of your city or state? Who settled it? When? Why?
- Is there a nickname for your city or state,
or people from it?
- What is your city or state famous
for? What is its best-known landmark or attraction?
- What traits or characteristics do you
think your city or state instills in its residents?
- How would you describe the
personality of your city or state? If it were a dish, what dish would it be?
- At the end of the allotted time, ask each group in
turn to read their prompt and answer the question. Did all the groups answer
the questions in the same way? (Probably not.) What ideas did all groups
have in common? (Write key words and concepts on the board.)
Part II: LEARNING ACTIVITIES
- Tell
students that they will now be taking a closer look at the unique character of
one of the most celebrated and distinctive cities in America--New
Orleans--through the experience of two of its many famous sons: jazz
musicians Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. Provide a focus
question for the first video segment by asking why both men felt that growing
up in New Orleans gave them advantages as musicians. Play the video segment Growing Up in New Orleans.
- Review
the focus question: why do Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. feel that
growing up in New Orleans gave them advantages as musicians? (Connick talks
about the opportunities New Orleans afforded to play so many styles of music
with so many different musicians, and Marsalis recalls the general saturation
of New Orleans’ culture in music, even on the bus on the way to school.) Ask
students how they think New Orleans came to be such a pervasively vibrant
melting pot of musical styles. (Accept all answers, but suggest that New Orleans is one of the most racially diverse cities
in the United States.) Ask students how this might affect musical culture. (Music tends to thrive in diverse contexts
where it can be cross-pollinated and reinterpreted.) Ask students how they
think New Orleans became so racially diverse. (Accept all answers, but tell students that one clue to answering this
question can be found in the family history of Branford Marsalis, which extends
back through many generations of New Orleans history.)
- Frame
the next video segment by explaining that Branford Marsalis’s third great-grandfather,
John Reinhard Learson, was a white German immigrant who fathered a child with a
black woman in 1851. Ask the class what they think this might suggest about the
identity of Marsalis’ third great-grandmother. (Accept all answers, but
explain that most bi-racial children in the pre-Civil War South were the result
of white men having sex with enslaved women.) Provide a focus question for
the next video segment by asking what historical factors make it difficult to
find genealogical information about African Americans before the Civil War. Play
the video segment A Willing Association. Pause at 5:39, after Marsalis says “It’s just
one of those places that if that’s what you wanted to do, that’s what you could
do.”
- Review
the focus question: what historical factors make it difficult to find
genealogical information about African Americans before the Civil War? (Before
emancipation, the birth, marriage, and death of enslaved people were not part
of any official record.) What was the identity of Marsalis’ third great-grandmother, and how was it finally determined? (Myrthe Valentin was
indicated to be a free woman of color as indicated on the long-lost birth
certificate of her son with John Reinhard Learson.) What does this suggest
about the nature of the bi-racial relationship between Valenti and Learson? (That
they were a real couple, uncoerced and unashamed.) How does Marsalis react
to hearing this revelation? (He observes that “If it was going to happen in
America, it would happen in Louisiana, and New Orleans specifically. It’s just
one of those places that if that’s what you wanted to do, that’s what you could
do.”) Ask students what they think Marsalis means by this. (Accept all
answers.) Provide a focus for the remainder of the segment by asking what
rights and freedoms African Americans enjoyed in New Orleans that they would
not have had in the rest of the South. Resume playing the segment through to its
conclusion.
- Review
the focus question: what rights and freedoms did African Americans enjoy in New
Orleans that they would not have in the rest of the South? (They could own
land, publish their own newspapers, and attend their own schools.) Ask
students why they think racial culture in New Orleans had developed so differently
from the rest of the South. (Accept all answers.)
- Divide
the class into groups and have each group log on to “The Birthplace of Jazz”
webpage. Explain that in the text of
this webpage they will be taking a closer look at the underlying reasons for
New Orleans’ unique racial heritage, and how this heritage helped create a
musical legacy that jazz musicians like Marsalis and Connick continue today.
Distribute the The Birthplace of Jazz Student Organizer
to each group and
allow 20 minutes to complete the organizer using information found on the web
page.
- After
20 minutes have passed, go through the organizer with the class, encouraging
discussion among the groups and correcting or clarifying answers as necessary. Revisit
the culminating question of the Introductory Activity: if New Orleans was a
dish, what dish would it be? (Accept all
answers.) Tell students that Branford Marsalis’ brother Wynton once
answered exactly this question, and provide a focus question for the next media
excerpt by asking students to what dish Wynton Marsalis likens New Orleans. Play
“Wynton Marsalis: On the Romance and Integration of New Orleans” Audio Feature (the
third such Audio Feature on “The Birthplace of Jazz” webpage).
- Review
the focus question: to what dish does Wynton Marsalis liken New Orleans? (Gumbo.) Ask students if they know what
gumbo is. (A soup or stew native to New
Orleans combining ingredients and culinary
practices of several cultures, including French, Spanish, German, West African,
and Choctaw Indian.) What
other point does Wynton Marsalis make in this excerpt about the nature of
ethnic and racial integration in New Orleans? (That the city is largely integrated because different ethnicities are
so physically intermingled, and couldn’t avoid each other even if they wanted
to.) Ask students what they think this might say about the nature of racial
and ethnic prejudice. (Accept all
answers, but suggest that Marsalis’ observation implies that proximity breeds
familiarity, and familiarity is conducive to understanding; in short, it is ignorance which breeds
contempt.) Frame
the next video segment by explaining that it presents a happy example of this principle at work in the life of Harry
Connick, Jr. as he discusses how New Orleans’ unique heritage shaped his
interests and his personality. Provide a focus question by asking what Connick
wanted to be when he was young.
Play the video segment Becoming More Negroidal
- Review the focus question: What did Connick,
Jr. want to be when he was young? (Because his musical heroes were all “fat
and black,” and because of the good-natured ribbing of the Marsalis brothers
that he should be “more negroidal,” Connick aspired to be “black” in speech and
dress--and, most importantly, in his music.) Ask students if they find
Connick’s revelation that he once aspired to be “more black” at all surprising,
unusual, or uncomfortable. (Accept all answers, but suggest that the
preeminence of African American sports and music figures in particular inspire
similar adoration and emulation among white youth today.) Did Connick
encounter resistance as a “skinny white boy” in realizing his dream to be taken
seriously as an authentic New Orleans jazzman? (No--not beyond the friendly teasing of the Marsalis brothers.) What
does this suggest about New Orleans culture? (Accept all answers, but
suggest that the lack of resistance Connick encountered as he grew up pursuing
distinction in a largely African American musical genre is testament to New
Orleans’ ongoing acceptance of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds—even rich
white boys!)
Part III: CULMINATING ACTIVITY
- Divide
the class into three groups and assign each of them one of the following
cities: New York, Chicago, or Kansas City. Have groups return to “The
Birthplace of Jazz” webpage and click on the “Places, Spaces, and
Changing Faces” link on the menu at the left of the screen. This will bring up a map of the United States
with links to their assigned cities. Using the material they find here, have
each group prepare a Student Organizer (with a corresponding answer key) about
the character of their assigned city, how that character came to be, and what
it has contributed to jazz music. This should be similar in nature to the The Birthplace of Jazz Student Organizer
they completed earlier in the lesson.
Copy and distribute each group’s student organizers to each student in the
other two groups, assigning them as homework.
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