Jazz Videos

An-D

So, the next few classes I'm teaching (English in China. Its a pretty vague subject), I'm going to be focusing on music and music genres. Teaching vocabulary and stuff.

I want to show them a music video for various musical genres (Chinese college students have literally no attention span unless you're showing them pictures/making funny noises/dancing), and I'm kind of stumped when it comes to jazz.

I want some awesome jazz videos. They really don't make music videos for the stuff, but just a live recording of some just...y'know, awesome music that is clearly jazz. Most of youtube is just a picture and music playing in the background. That won't hold my students' attentions for long. We need to think more energy.

Ideas?

Comahawk

Does '90s swing count?

If so, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies have a few music videos.

Noisymunk

How much information are you interested in?

The second disc of this DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Smith-Drumset-Technique-History-U-S/dp/B00007CWI6/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1304002484&sr=8-9
is a lesson on the origins of American music. Steve starts with Ragtime, moves up through Jazz and brings it all the way to Funk and Rock. It's incredibly informative, but at 50$ it might be more than what you want.

http://youtu.be/DsIJMp-mwkg

http://youtu.be/w90BG9yzhpo

Caution! Robot

Cuong Vu – Modern, experimental and very energetic jazz plus has cool points for your students since young asian-americans make up half the group:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do2cwVLF1Vw

Benny Goodman Orchestra Sing Sing Sing – Traditional big band jazz but still pretty powerful I think:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mJ4dpNal_k

Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit – This song is definitely not upbeat, but if you research the story a little you might find it a worthy story to tell your class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

McViking

Umm, more energy, then...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrcZqnICYbs

If this doesn't turn you on, you are dead inside.

Or, if you want to teach your students about subjects more illicit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44pyeEvhcQ

Man, I could link to this stuff all day...

garroad_ran

Can you narrow down what kind of jazz you're looking for? For the oldest stuff, you may have a hard time finding videos, but there are quite a few vids out there of guys like Charlie Parker, who basically invented Bebop and almost singlehandedly took jazz from a popular dancing music to an art form.

There are also plenty of videos of guys like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and of course, more and more as you get more modern. If you want some modern jazz guys who you can definitely find videos of, check out Wayne Shorter or Michael Brecker. If you go more modern than that (Joshua Redman, Chris Potter), you'll almost definitely be getting away from swing grooves and into funkier, straighter ones, which may not be what you're looking for if you want to hip your students to the traditional image of "jazz," but might hold their attention longer.

Don't take that as any sort of a comprehensive list. I'm just shooting a few names off the top of my head that I know you'll be able to find videos of, and all horn players at that, since they're part of the stereotypical jazz image.