Posted on 06/12/2009 12:41:22 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
The first family of the United States is scheduled to welcome the first family of jazz to the White House on Monday, along with 150 youngsters who'll come to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. not for a tour, but for a blue-ribbon music lesson.
First Lady Michelle Obama will be the hostess for the White House Jazz Studio, the first in a series of three planned music education sessions this year at the White House, with the next two featuring as-yet unnamed country and classical musicians as guest instructors.
For the kickoff event, five members of the Marsalis family are on the bill as instructors for instrumental music students hailing mainly from music academies in Washington, but also from the Marsalises' hometown of New Orleans and other regions...
Since the White House was designed for state functions rather than as a conservatory, there will be improvisation in more ways than one. The East Room and the State Dining Room on the first floor will become classrooms for an hour, as will the Diplomatic Room downstairs.The curriculum: three different early-afternoon workshops, on "Syntax of Jazz," "The Blues Experience and Jazz" and "Duke Ellington and Swing." After that, the students, who'll be bringing their instruments, get to kick back and enjoy a concert in the East Room by a quintet led by clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera.
Will future sessions include Willie Nelson demonstrating how to play a really beat-up guitar? Gustavo Dudamel bringing El Sistema to Chez Obama?
We'll see.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
Can I get tickets for the White House through Live-Nation yet?
I just threw up. Can I see their new dog now?
Country music doesn’t need their help or publicity.
I assume the Country performer is not going to be Charlie Daniels.
Any white folk allowed?
This is the Black Camelot...I guess.
Well, what the Hell. The Marsalis family has brought the world a lot of happiness with their music.
Sigh.
It's just like the music industry of the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s, when ASCAP wouldn't publish “race/rhythm&blues” songs or “hillbilly/country&western” songs.
It's why BMI came into power and eventually why BMI was willing to publish rock and roll songs and ASCAP sued because the whole demographics of music had shifted.
When’s hip hop day?
Nah-—it’s another type of special black caucus, you know, the black group this and the black group that and the special black group this and the special black group that and the black month this and the black day that and the black blah that and the blah blah blah......
Michelle got culture. LOL
Maybe Gordon Brown could just give them a DVD of the Ken Burns series on Jazz. It’d be cheaper.
Easter. Oh wait, that was hippity hoppity day.
BO: Commander in Leash?
What I’d give to have a Photoshop of Obama being led around by Soros and Ayers!
Blu-Ray?
A useless expense for the purpose of marketing the Obama brand.
For the cost involved the Obambas could probably help dozens of music schools expand their summer programs in “needy” areas.
LOL! Good one!
Sounds like a good use of the White House to me. I hope this leads to building the popularity of jazz. This great American music is so underapreciated.
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