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Oaktown Jazz Workshops provides a variety of programs that develop and promote education and youth participation in Jazz as a music art form. The Programs include: Performance Workshops | Public
Concerts | Festivals & Community Events
Oaktown Jazz Workshops (OJW) is comprised of working musicians-educators with the goal to perpetuate, propagate, and preserve the American Art form JAZZ. Jazz education includes both education in jazz and education through jazz. All youth learners at all development /skill levels should have access to a balanced, comprehensive and progressive program of jazz education facilitated by effective professional jazz players/teachers. We attempt to challenge the mind, stimulate the imagination, bring joy and satisfaction to lives and exalt spirits. It is very important that the quality and quantity of jazz education not be dependent on geographical location, social status, racial or ethnic identity, urban/suburban/rural habitat, or most important wealth. All youth should have extensive opportunities for active participation in jazz as listeners, performers, composers and improvisers. Our core program. Young men and women who have already had some previous experience with a musical instrument and wish to develop their skill further are immersed -- from the very beginning -- in an ensemble environment where they play alongside peer learners and professionals. Working in performance conditions helps young people develop important social and character building skills. They learn to work as critical members of a team and, at the same time, develop self-esteem and a sense of their own accomplishments and potentials. Workshops are set up in a way that encourages more advanced students to assume teaching and mentoring responsibilities with less experienced students. This relationship yields a wide range of additional, personal benefits for those involved. Workshops are currently offered twice a week at two community center sites in Oakland. We expect to expand to four sites in the coming year to include new neighborhoods. Public Concerts at the Alice Arts Center Performance is not only an essential component of our students' training but our principle vehicle for promoting jazz appreciation among members of the community at large as well. For the past three years, under the name of the OJW Performance Ensemble, the students from OJW's workshops have given public concerts at the Alice Arts Center. These performances, which are offered every ten weeks, year-round, often feature original jazz compositions and arrangements by out students. Throughout the year, the OJW Performance Ensemble performs at festivals and community events, on the average of ten performances a year. Venues have included Festival at the Lake, Oakland A's games, and city-sponsored events. One of our best known and most widely attended performance programs, now going into its third season, is the Groovemobile, a series of six free summer concerts held in neighborhood parks though out the greater Oakland area. In this series, sponsored in cooperation with the City of Oakland Office of Parks and Recreation, the Oaktown Players share the stage with two or three professional jazz bands. This series has attracted numerous guest artists including, most recently, world-renowned drummer E.W. Wainwright and the African Roots of Jazz, and jazz vocalist George Hubbard and his quartet. These concerts regularly have audiences of 200-300. Our newest program, Jazz in the Schools, will target the high schools in Oakland in which no music program is available. By presenting concert/demonstrations at these schools, OJW students will kindle in their peers an interest in jazz and encourage those who may have studied an instrument in middle school to get interested in playing again. January 12, 2001: Westlake Middle School
Public Lectures & Demonstrations at Yoshi's Because we believe strongly in the importance of role models and clear examples of artistic excellence, OJW has developed a series of public lecture/demonstrations by featured jazz musicians playing at Yoshi's NiteSpot, a major venue for jazz in the East Bay. Over the past two years, some of the most renowned performers in the country have taken the time to participate in this OJW program, which has done a great deal to attract new students to OJW and to generate interest within the local community. Khalil Shaheed, Director, Oaktown Jazz Workshops |
