ARETHA'S JAZZ JAM - SUNDAY NIGHTS
COME JAM WITH US! Sundays at 7pm at Aretha’s Jazz Café, Aretha’s Jazz Jam is a traditional-style jam with extra mentorship & assistance to those who want it.
Free & Open to All Ages & Skill Levels, Vocalists & Instrumentalists
In an ideal setting, both experienced musicians and young musicians mingle socially and musically. Detroit offers the combination of a thriving professional scene and many colleges and high schools. It is critical in a young jazz musicians' training to receive a "bandstand education". This is what we hope to provide by combining a professional rhythm section with young jamming jazz musicians and vocalists from the Detroit Public Schools, Wayne State University, and even places beyond. Young musicians will not only be able to receive quality bandstand instruction, but also network with each other and share ideas.
People give Charlie Parker credit for creating bebop, but all of the insiders know that even though he had the initial seed, it was a group project, refined at jam sessions like Minton's Playhouse in Harlem. At Minton's, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke and others all experimented to create the music that jazz musicians revere. What many of the insiders don't know is, that these beboppers received instruction at Minton's by the generation of great swing musicians before them at this jam session; Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry, Lester Young, and Coleman Hawkins, as they did from the generation before them.
At Aretha's Jazz Cafe, we want develop and encourage the 21st century young jazz musicians to make their mark and keep jazz in the present instead of the past, while being tutored and guided musician/educators from the generation before them. If this person is a high school vocalist from our Vocal Jazz Academy or a jazz studies student from Wayne State, we will bring everyone together in this great sharing of ideas to be viewed in real time, in front whoever wishes to see musical history take place.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
- Pack your instrument and come downtown
- Park free on Sundays!
- Meetup with Mr. Scott Gwinnell, get paired with a mentor
- Play and sing and learn
- Rinse repeat next Sunday!
