Why present a program on blues and jazz to students?
THELONIOUS S. MONK, JR: Well, the relationship with blues and jazz actually goes to the heart of [American] history and American popular music. The majority of African American music was developed by African Americans basically on their own — we start with the call-and-response in the slave fields and we move from that to gospel in the church, and of course the blues (blues people say the blues is really gospel with your head down). And what you have to look to — beyond the actual technicality of music — is the form itself, because the form of the blues, the original blues, is a very free form, and that form influenced all the other music. And when you take the harmonic and the melodic influences of the blues, and combine them with European classical music, you end up with things like jazz, without a doubt. Jazz came directly out of the blues and ultimately gave us rhythm and blues, funk, hip hop, all of which is pop music. NEA: How did students react to these performances and educa
