The jazz phrasing found throughout The Jazz Fly ("ZA-baza, BOO-zaba, ZEE-zah, RO-ni," etc.) is based on a type of singing called "scatting." Early African-American musicians first applied scatting to jazz. Scatting picks up where language leaves off, communicating feelings and nuances that words alone cannot express. The following exercise is fun and effective at increasing phonemic awareness. The nonsensical "jazz story" may also serve as a starting point to writing stories using real words.
Like the book, this exercise aims to acquaint listeners with the three "i" s of jazz: ingenuity, improvisation and interpretation. It takes ingenuity to work within the story's framework below, improvisation to come up with nonsense words, and interpretation to finally make sense of the jazz story.
Creating a Jazz Story with Your Class:
1) First discuss the basics for creating jazz words. Choose two consonants such as "Z" and "D". Then add vowels, such as "ee" or "oo". That's the simplest way to create jazzy, non-sensical "scat" words. You can also add another consonant after the vowel so that "zee" becomes "zeep", for example, and "koo" becomes "kooz" etc. The one rule to remember is to not use words that have real meaning. Nonsense words only!
2) Have your students create two-syllable jazz words and plug them into the paragraph below in spaces 1-4. Exa. Za-Dee, Doo-Dah, Zoo-doo, Day-day. Also, write the words on the blackboard as you go. (Demonstrate to older students how vowel sounds can be written in different ways; i.e. "u" or "oo", "e" or "eh"; "ae" or "ay", etc.)
3) Now have the students create 1-syllable jazz words, and insert these into spaces 5-8 below. For example, Ra, Jee, Mo, Zuh, etc. (Tip: decline to avoid sounds that are sure to evoke laughter such as Pee, Poo, Pew, etc.)
4) Finally, have the students create 3-syllable jazz words, starting and stopping with any consonant they choose, and insert these into spaces 9-12.
5) Now enjoy reading the story in different tones of voice, from super serious to really jazzy. The whole class can repeat two sentences at a time while staying in rhythm. Once everyone is familiar with the cadence, you might choose one or two brave souls to read the whole story aloud.
6) For enrichment, ask students what the story is about. Each, of course, should interpret the tale differently. They can start to make sense of it by assigning real words for the jazz words, one at a time.
