Jazz At Lincoln Center Performance
Nov 23, 2015

On November 16, students from Whitney partnership schools—PS 3, PS 33, PS 41, The Lab School, Clinton School for Artists and Writers, and Grace Church—were invited to a special performance by musicians from Jazz at Lincoln Center in conjunction with the exhibition Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist. Students flocked into the Laurie M. Tisch Education Center for two separate age-specific presentations, one for elementary school students and one for middle school students. This event marked the debut of performance programs for K-12 students designed to enrich their experience of the Whitney’s exhibitions. 

Archibald Motley developed a unique, distinctive style, and one of the first series of paintings that depict contemporary black urban life in Jazz Age America. Although named for a neighborhood in New York City, the Harlem Renaissance extended to other cities such as Chicago and New Orleans. Motley documented African Americans at leisure in “Bronzeville,” a neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago where many African American families had settled. The area had a thriving African American business community and music culture, especially that of jazz and blues. 

Connecting the rhythms and riffs of jazz to Motley’s paintings, the musicians created a fun learning experience for both groups of students. They played their instruments and drew on students’ knowledge of American history to demonstrate, step by step, how jazz music was invented in New Orleans and traveled to the North with the Great Migration. They also moved around the theater, striking cool poses and bringing their instruments close to the students so that they could hear the sounds up close and witness the magic of jazz improvisation.

They also encouraged students to join in, and create their own improvised rhythms to the music. By the end of the performance, everyone had gotten into the groove.

Heather Maxson, Director of School, Youth, and Family Programs at the Whitney remarked that “The Jazz at Lincoln Center performance this week really helped some of the themes and ideas inherent in Archibald Motley’s work to come alive for students. They could imagine that they were in Harlem or Chicago at the time of the Harlem Renaissance. It was an awesome way for them to experience, through sound and the bandmaster’s storytelling, the development of jazz.”

Michelle Kurlan, the art teacher and partnership coordinator from PS 33 said: “Thank you so much for yet another special event! It always makes me happy to see the looks on the students' faces at these amazing programs. You are always taking things to a new level, which is hard to imagine. This event really was such a rich one for the students and brought learning to life.”

By Dina Helal, Manager of Education Resources