Young Razzcals Jazz Project Scrapbook Album of Pictures

While running a jam session for high-schoolers and young college students in Albuquerque, N.M., Dave Adams was taken aback when a young alto saxophonis asked to sit in. Throughout his long musical career, Adams had never seen a fourth-grader take part in a jam session. The boy played "Satin Doll" and didn't sound half bad. He showed up the following week with a friend, and soon Adams had nine or
10 youngsters, from frades 4 to 6, turning up at his jams. Adams offered to rehearse the children on weekends, provided they bought fake books. And so, the Young Razzcals Jazz Project was born.
   Adams told the children that if they learned to play Charlie Parker tunes in the right sequence, from simple to more compelx, they could learn to improvise. He began with tunes like "Now's The Time" and worked them toward numbers like "Au Privave" and "Ornithology." He played recordings of the songs and required that the kids could hum them before attempting them on their instruments.
   "I made a bet with someone that I could teach these kids
to play Charlie Parker tunes. The high school kids couldn't cut this stuff. And that's when people started taking notice.
   Since those jam sessions in 1992, the Young Razzcals
have come a long way. With Bird tunes as their foundation, they expanded their repertoire to include dozens of jazz standards and a few blues numbers. More than 30 middle-school-age kids are now involved in the project's two bands.

"They're learning to improvise on a high level," said Adams, a pianist who teaches music theory and music history at Albuquerque Bosque Preparatory School, where the Razzcals rehearse weekly. "They're learning to think in terms of phrases as opposed to notes. It scares them to death when they start, but once they start playing phrases, the phrases get longer until you can't believe it's not an adult playing."
The Razzcals have recorded two CD's and have a third in the works, The Young Razzcals Meet the Monsters of Jazz, which will feature guest appearances by mentors like Bobby Shew, Rob Wilkerson and Butch Miles. They've played gigs in New Mexico and Colorado, performed on public TV and recorded a soundtrack for a science-education film. They even performed at Colorado's Telluride Jazz Celebration in 1995. It happened on a fluke: Adams brought some students to Telluride and performed with them on the street the day before the festival. The festival director caught wind of them and invited the whole band to perform on the main stage. Every year since then, they've returned to Telluride and performed in local clubs in conjunction with the festival. This August, 10 of Adams' top students will take the fest's main stage again and serve as mentors in Telluride's jazz camp. The event caps off a busy summer that will include jazz camps in Albuquerque and several festival gigs in Colorado.

- Article by John Janowiak
May, 1998 Down Beat Magazine