Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #522343 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780152053079
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-5–Using a lively version of the children's song This Old Man, this book introduces famous African-American jazz musicians as it counts to nine. Louis Armstrong is number 1. This jazz man, he plays one,/He plays rhythm with his thumb,/With a Snap! Snap! Snazzy-snap!/Give the man a hand,/This jazz man scats with the band. The illustrations give clues to the performers, and the end matter has a biographical sketch for each one. In the final spread, all of the musicians are together, taking bows: These jazz men make one great band! The energetic collage illustrations introduce the action by picturing bold striped curtains encompassing an empty stage set up with jazz instruments; each performer's subsequent spread has striped borders. Onomatopoeic words spill across the pages in imitation of the music's sounds. The book is fun for jazz aficionados and neophytes alike. Children will enjoy the sounds and illustrations and sing along without needing to know more.–Judith Constantinides, formerly at East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, LA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Ehrhardt moves the traditional counting chant "This Old Man" to the jazz club in this infectious, rhythmic offering. Each page features a different jazz musician who plays "rhythm with his thumb," makes "music with his shoes," and so on. The rhyming text scans with a smooth, toe-tapping tempo that's nicely extended by the colorful, mixed-media images, arranged in compositions that have their own staccato beat. Bars of striped color slide across page edges, and stylized African American musicians, rendered in geometric shapes and textured prints, send up "notes that rise to heaven." Children will want to shout along with the scat-cat rhythms ("Beedle-di-Bop! Bebop!") that replace the original chant's "paddy-whack" refrain and are printed in colorful letters that punctuate the artwork. This will appeal most to preschoolers and kindergarteners, but older children will appreciate the closing section, which reveals that the featured musicians represent real-life jazz legends, including Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker. A short biography of each is appended. A welcome introduction to the world of jazz. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Customer Reviews

This Great Book! (More and More Honors!)
Note: Since writing the review below, I've discovered that "This Jazz Man" has received three (and counting) prestigious honors in the last month or so: A Nick Jr. Book of the Year for Children, one of the N.Y. Public Libraries Top 100 books to Read to Kids, and one of a very few named by National Public Radio as a best children's book of the year!

February 2007 Update: This Jazz Man is on the cover of the February "Crickets" magazine! In addition, it was shortlisted as a top book by the Cooperative Children's Book Center, and is being used as a teaching tool for a Smithsonian Museum (yes, that Smithsonian!) exhibit.

If you've bought this book, you and I share a certain nose for kids' books; if you haven't, you'll discover a book that's snappy and swinging, fun and informative. My original review follows.


"Doodly-doodly-Doot-doot! Toot-Toot!"

That's Karen Ehrhardt's delightful take on a Dizzy Gillespie trumpet line, and like the rest of this sparkling first book, every note rings joyous and true. In a somewhat daring move, Ms. Ehrhardt airs out the musty English poem, "This Old Man," with jazz-infused lyrics, and distills the essence of nine jazz giants: Louis Armstrong, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Chano Pozo, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charles Mingus.

The improvisations in "This Jazz Man" are authentic and fun--the text is made for reading out loud! Listen to this evocation of Charlie Parker, for example:

This jazz man, he plays five,
He plays bebop, he plays jive,
With a Deedle-di-bop! Bebop!
Give the man a hand,
This jazz man blows with the band.

Within the 5-line format of the original song, the author conveys the sound and spirit of these artists, while keeping the tone light and understandable for her young, perhaps jazz-naive audience (about 3 to 7 years-old). Along with each Jazz Man's stanza are the sounds and rhythms of his performance -- depicted in text incorporated with each illustration. When drummer Art Blakey "plays solos with his sticks" and "beats with the band," the percussive sounds "Chikka-chee! Chikka-chee! Bubbuda-bubbuda-bubbuda-BOMP!" pulse over his vibrating cymbals. Following the `performance,' older readers (and adults) can learn more about Blakey -- his innovation of the "press roll" and his role in nurturing new talent -- in the book's afterward. Riffing on the customary introductions of band members at jazz gigs ("Playing 4, form Washington, D.C... Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington"), the book briefly spotlights the life of each Jazz Man.

Illustrator R. G. Roth complements Ehrhardt's narrative pictures with multi-media illustrations that are playfully retro yet fresh and child-friendly. Airy compositions help children see the relaxed, expansive pose of the smiling Louis Armstrong, the verve and rhythmic creativity of "Chano" Pozo (how many times have you seen him in a jazz book for kids?), the playful attack of Fats Waller, and the stature and majesty of Charles Mingus. Roth displays a repertoire of textures and soft, engaging colors, and makes subtle references to Birdland, the Newport Jazz Festival, and other venues along the edges of book's `stage. For the small fry, a cute and playfully elusive mouse plays hide and seek throughout the book. "This Jazz Man" has an exhilarating finale -- after each man plays (1 through 9), all of the jazz icons appear on stage together:

This jazz band, they play ten,
We beg them to play again,
With an "Encore, we want more!"
Give them all a hand"
These jazz men make one great band!


"This Jazz Man" gets it right, rhymes it tight, and entertains without misrepresenting. (To put this achievement in context, too many kids' "jazz" books really focus on the blues--usually the rural blues, seen through an awkward sentimentalism--or solely on dance. Sometimes they confuse eras, portraying any jazz singer as a combination of Bessie Smith, post-WWII hep cats, and 1950's beats, with a dash of oddly misplaced 1970's styles.)

"This Jazz Man" is a natural for school or library audiences, rambunctious group singing, the first efforts of beginning readers, or as a bedtime treat for toddlers. One doesn't need to know one lick about jazz to enjoy the musicality of the rhymes and the understated but compelling jazz portraits: They stand on their own. In addition, teachers can easily adapt "This Jazz Man" to language units, numbers and counting, music appreciation, art, solo and group singing. Older students may delve further into the lives and times of the musicians through Ehrhardt's rich yet compact biographical sketches in the afterward. (Offhand, I can't think of any book--for kids or adults--that so succinctly and eloquently describes each musician's significance.) For readers who'd like to sample the actual music, Ehrhardt recommends recorded works for each Jazz Man: a couple tracks for each musician, and even two feature films (available on video) that display Bojangles' tapping talents. (Perhaps in future editions of this book, the publishers could include a companion CD/DVD.)

With apologies to the author--though inspired by her:

This jazz fan, I count one,
"This Jazz Man" is lots of fun!
With a smile and a nod and an "ain't that grand!"
Let's give Ehrhardt a great big hand!

Jude's Review of Jazz Man
I'm 3 and my Grandmother Helene reads this book to me. She said that my Doctor Beth gave it to me and my sister Scarlett and the author signed it. That made me smile.

I really like this book. My grandmother sings me it and i like music and instruments and can name the saxophone and trumpet and drums.I like the pictures of the conga drums.

I usually say, " read it again" when she's done and I can almost pick out all the numbers now too. Jude Stulb, Pueblo Colorado

A great read aloud for kids!
I am an elementary school media specialist for grades 1 - 5. I read this book to my first and second graders. By the third jazz man they were chanting along with me. By the fifth man we were all singing along with the familiar song tune. They loved the scat phrases and repeated them over and over. What a bonus that these men are actual jazz legends. I highly recommend this book for a great musical read.