Jazz Appreciation Workshop with Benny Hill

Jazz Appreciation Workshop with Benny Hill

Sundays, October 18 – November 8, 2026
3 – 4:30 PM
Conference Room
CAM Members $72 / Not-Yet Members $90

Join us for a 4-week Jazz Appreciation Workshop with local saxophonist Benny Hill. Through guided listening, engaging discussions, and historical and cultural exploration, participants will discover the evolution of jazz from its early roots to modern jazz and beyond. Whether you’re new to jazz or an enthusiast looking to deepen your understanding, this workshop will explore music by legendary artists such as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane while diving into the places and innovative movements that have shaped one of America’s most influential art forms.

Session 1: Early Jazz & The Birth of an American Art Form

• The Blueprint: Transitioning from ragtime, blues, and spirituals into early jazz.

• Key Geography: New Orleans (the melting pot), the Great Migration, and the expansion into Chicago and New York.

• Key Figures: Louis Armstrong (shifting jazz from an ensemble music to a soloist’s art), Jelly Roll Morton, and Bix Beiderbecke.

• Listening Focus: The distinction between polyphonic New Orleans style and the emerging structured solo.

Session 2: The Swing Era & Big Band Innovation

• The Blueprint: Jazz as America’s mainstream popular music during the Great Depression and World War II.

• Key Themes: The architecture of the big band, the role of arrangers, and the ballrooms that brought diverse audiences together.

• Key Figures: Duke Ellington (framing jazz as serious composition), Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, and the vocal mastery of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

• Listening Focus: The driving “four-on-the-floor” rhythm, call-and-response between horn sections, and the sophisticated arrangements of Ellington.

Session 3: The Revolution of Bebop & The Soul of Hard Bop

• The Blueprint: The shift from danceable pop music to a complex, virtuosic modern art form meant for listening, followed by the soulful, blues-drenched reaction of hard bop.

• Key Themes: The underground Minton’s Playhouse jam sessions, the harmonic extensions of bebop, and how hard bop re-incorporated gospel and rhythm & blues.

• Key Figures: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk (Bebop); Miles Davis, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, and Clifford Brown (Hard Bop).

• Listening Focus: Blazing tempos and intricate lines (Bebop) vs. deep grooves, heavy blues inflections, and driving driving rhythm sections (Hard Bop).

Session 4: Modern Jazz & Beyond

• The Blueprint: The fragmentation of jazz into diverse sub-genres from the late 1950s onward, pushing boundaries of structure, harmony, and rhythm.

• Key Themes: The coolness of the West Coast, the modal revolution (moving away from complex chord changes), the total freedom of avant-garde/free jazz, and the electric fusion era.

• Key Figures: Miles Davis (spanning cool, modal, and fusion), John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, and the Modern Jazz Quartet.

• Listening Focus: The spaciousness of modal tracks like Kind of Blue, the intense spiritual exploration of late-period Coltrane, and the time-signature experiments of Time Out.

REGISTER for the entire series