Early Jazz -- New Orleans, Kansas City, and the Midwest (Music 271)

Professor Don Chamberlain

Consulting Librarian Michelle Holschuh Simmons.

Students in the course were also members of the Cornell Jazz Band.  The course involves a field trip to New Orleans to use the Hogan Jazz Archives and Williams Research Center at Tulane University.  Students arrive in New Orleans with a carefully chosen topic from Reference and Reserve resources at Cole Library and the online resources of Tulane.

Type: 
Field Experience
Paper

Level:  200

Block Plan Context:

S

M

T

W

R

F

S

1

2

3

4

Important Features of the Assignment:

• The Block Plan makes a trip to New Orleans possible and extends the use of online resources to tangible resources from the archives.
• The staging of the assignment allows students to make sure they have chosen a viable topic before going to New Orleans.  Students understand the cyclical nature of the research process and the amount of information necessary to make a research project feasible.
• Students are exposed to the differing expertise of librarians and archivists.
• Students have a vested interest in their topic as it directly relates to their own lives and pursuits, which also discourages plagiarism.
• Students use a variety of resources within the discipline of jazz music.

Description of Assignment:

While still in Iowa, students are to find and choose a musician from the Early Jazz Era (1920s-1930s) who played the same instrument as they do in the Cornell Jazz Band.  Students use Reference and Reserve resources at Cole Library to locate possible topics and then search the online resources at the Hogan Jazz Archive and the Williams Research Center to find out how much information Tulane holds in their archives about these individuals.  A lack of information sent students back to the resources at Cole Library for alternative and more promising possibilities.

Students then travel to New Orleans to access the Hogan Jazz Archives and/or Williams Research Center.  Students’ end goal involves writing a paper about this particular individual, which may include the use of oral histories of these jazz musicians found at Tulane.

Timeline: