Santa Barbara Vocal Jazz Foundation – VocalPoint

The Santa Barbara Vocal Jazz Foundation’s mission is to preserve vocal jazz as an original American musical form and provide vital music programming in schools for the purpose of developing future generations that appreciate and participate in vocal jazz music. The residency-workshop program not only serves to teach vocal jazz within the regular school day but to introduce a desire in our youth for any type of musical or theatrical pursuit.

In our Journey through Jazz Residency-Workshop, artists spend seven sessions at the school with a combination of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students. Students take a musical and narrative trek from early Dixieland to today’s fusion jazz, while learning basic singing and performance skills, jazz terms, American jazz history and ethnic/music diversity. A school assembly performance closes the residency with the possibility of a public performance at the historic Lobero Theatre! (Grades 4-6)

In Journey through Jazz! Residency-Workshop #1 artists teach one group of approximately 60 students, during a 60-minute weekly session. Curriculum includes MP3 rehearsal tracks, YouTube videos of historical performances by American jazz artists, lyric and dialogue scripts, jazz vocabulary list, and the opportunity for some students to learn and present dialogue. Fee: $3,100
Grant funding may be available to help support a portion of the fee.

Journey through Jazz! Residency-Workshop #2 offers the same curriculum for up to 120 students. Students are divided into two similarly sized groups and each group is provided a 60-minute session. These weekly sessions are scheduled back-to-back. Fee: $4,800
Grant funding may be available to help support a portion of the fee.

Quotes from Journey through Jazz student participants...
• “Thank you for giving us a chance to perform at the Lobero. I kept laughing because I was having so much fun!”
• “From the beginning, I feel like I have become a better singer.”
• “I had so much fun speaking my lines and dancing.”
• “Thank you for helping us learn more about Jazz history and musicians and singing songs and performing a wonderful, fun, exciting performance!”
• “Thank you for teaching us about jazz and helping us to sing correctly. It was a great journey through jazz.”