Join us for the jazz listening history series, Jazz 101. The course was developed at Jazz at Lincoln Center 25 years ago. Eight weekly sessions embrace the breadth of how Jazz music works and where it came from—and also how it fits into our culture, and where Jazz is going.

Although it’s a curated, organized listening-and-lecture course, the emphasis is on demystifying Jazz content for beginners. We introduce basic terms, fundamental concepts, and cornerstone figures in the music. And of course we listen closely to swinging, essential masterpiece recordings. Jazz 101 won’t try to make you into a great Jazz musician, but into a great listener—comfortable to understand and appreciate what you’re hearing.

The course is free to all, no registration necessary. There’s also no test, no homework, no entrance exam, no audition, no roll-call—no stress. Just great sounds and stories.

Schedule: Class meets on Mondays from 5:30-7:30pm. 

• September 29
• October 6
• October 20
• October 27 (virtual)
• November 3

Location: *Please note: this session will be held in the Community Room, not the Coolidge Museum.* We’re delighted to hold Jazz 101 in the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum. The 30th president may not have been an avid Jazz follower, but he guided the country through the thick of Jazz Age culture, and a critical developmental period for the music that we’ll spend some quality time detailing in class.

About the instructor: Jazz scholar and educator Ben Young has spent 30 years doing first-person research into the history of jazz music, as learned through direct contact with the musicians and the artifacts of their achievements. Young was heard for nearly 25 years as a radio host on WKCR-FM in New York City, where he hosted programs dealing with the gamut of Jazz and modern improvised music, and spent a decade as the station’s first Director of Broadcasting and Operations. He has produced, annotated or researched several hundred historical jazz reissues for major interests and independent labels, and has written a small number of monographs and articles documenting essential figures of the New York’s 20th Century jazz scene—including 1998’s Dixonia: A Bio-Discography of Bill Dixon. His exhaustive biography of pianist Cecil Taylor is forthcoming in 2027. Since 2009 he has been a staff lecturer in the Swing University program at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Young presently is director of the Jazz History Database, which was founded at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

This series is sponsored by Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares, Brian Bailey, Northampton Jazz Festival, and Downtown Sounds.