by Matt Smith
(reprinted with permission from Bristol Pilot, March 9, 2000)
For a few hours on last Friday afternoon, the band room at Bristol High School on Wilson Avenue was transformed into a smoky jazz club in the Montmartre section of Paris circa the 1920's, minus the smoke. The cinder block walls were draped in the red, white and blue of the French flag, a cardboard street lamp seemed to light the tile floors, and a professional cabaret singer and pianist were bringing the music of the Jazz Age to life.
Singer Claudia Hommel and accompanist Bob Moreen spent an hour and a half channeling performers of the day like Josephine Baker and Jelly Roll Morton for Deborah Fine's 10th grade history students as part of their lesson on the period, and for the school's music students. The program was held in conjunction with the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, which is currently showing the Smithsonian's traveling exhibit, "The Jazz Age in Paris, 1914-1940." The museum received a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to make the Bristol High program possible, as well as a similar one at the Neshaminy Junior High School earlier that day.
Phyllis Schwartz, interim curator of education at the Michener, said she was particularly glad to expose the students to the talents of Hommel, who also performed a sold-out concert on Saturday night at the museum. "She has a magnificent gift for helping students in a positive way," Schwartz said.
Besides demonstrating the Charleston (a popular dance of the period) and prancing through tunes by Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, Hommel interspersed history lessons of the tumultuous period between World War I and World War II -and explained how societal shifts were reflected in the music. Hommel also stressed to the students that Paris was more accepting of the mostly Black jazz performers than the United States with its "Jim Crow" laws. "Paris was a place where they could go and be proud to be Black," she said.
After the performance, she conducted one-on-one master's classes with Bristol High music students.
Hommel, who was born in Paris to American parents, and who sang a number of the songs in fluent French, was commissioned to do the project when the Smithsonian exhibit was in Chicago.
Despite her background as a singer, and being "passionate about history," she said it was a [new] challenge to create the Jazz Age program as she has spent most of her career studying the post-World War II jazz movement synonymous with Paris's "Left Bank."
Although this was the first exposure most of her students had to the material, Fine said that her students seemed to learn a great deal. " I think a lot of them were very impressed by it."
Hommel, who has been performing at schools for the past sever years, said that it can be difficult to reach kids whose music tastes are so seemingly different than that prevalent in the Jazz Age, "but the Jazz Age is actually the root of much of today's popular music." Although her program is often the first time students have seen a live performance of this "intimate art form" in a school setting, she notes she often gets positive written responses from students after the fact, adding, "I'm putting out the bait -- and the hope is that they grab it."
After publication of the Bristol Pilot article, Claudia did in fact receive many written comments from students at Bristol and a whole packet of notes from nearby Neshaminy Middle School students. See the Student Reviews page for a selection.
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