Jazz with Teens
Since last week’s blog was about listening to jazz with your young kids, this week is about older kids and teens. By middle and high school, kids have their own taste in music – and typically, there’s some overlap in taste with their parents, and some musical interests that do not overlap at all! If you want to share your love of jazz with your teens, here are some ideas for getting started.
- Listen to what they have to say about music. Propose a trade, and go to a concert they are interested in together, then take them to a concert of music you like.
- Make sure they don’t feel left out at the venue you go to. Choose a venue in which not everyone will be drinking, or one in which the bartender will make the teens an elegant virgin cocktail.
- Watch movies with jazz in them together, such as Chicago, All Night Long, Sweet and Low, and the many great movies out there profiling individual musicians, like Bird (Charlie Parker) or Lady Sings the Blues (Billie Holiday).
- Invite your kid to bring a friend when going with you to jazz shows. They’ll have more fun, and who knows, maybe you’ll inspire more than one teen to get interested in jazz.
Yoko Miwa and a Berklee student
