Vocal jazz artist Karla Harris has risen to the heights of her profession through performing and recording. But the Atlantan is most passionate about passing her love for jazz to the next generation.
Harris and other jazz musicians spent a couple of days this summer unraveling the complexity of the music genre to children attending an Art Scholars camp at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta.
Callanwolde’s Art Scholars camps offer five full days of free art enrichment designed to support low-income elementary school students during the summer. Almost 100 kids participated in the music, art and dance classes in the program’s second year.
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
“What is jazz?” Harris asked the third through fifth graders, some of whom were in her Art Scholars jazz class last summer.
“Mood music,” “smooth and nice music,” “church music,” they said.
“Yes, yes, and yes,” she responded.
“Jazz is the root of all music you listen to,” Harris told the campers.
She said it’s a “uniquely American art form,” a blend of European and African cultures.
“Jazz values and the same values as democracy,” said Harris. “It takes some unique values that we treasure in this country and democracies as a whole to make it work. You have to be willing to sit down in a room with people – some who you’ve never met before – and say we have a common goal. We need to create this song.”
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Harris has been recognized for her educational outreach through jazz. She has been a longtime volunteer with Young Audiences, a national arts outreach organization, and helped to develop a music curriculum for children when she was in college.
Harris’s interest in jazz was piqued as a young child as she sifted through her parents’ record collection in their St. Louis home. “Jazz was in there. I listened and soaked it up,” she said. She would write out the lyrics of famous singers.
After college and years of focused jazz performance, Harris says she’s come full circle with an interest in teaching and mentoring. She is beginning her eighth year as the vocal jazz instructor at Kennesaw State University, and her studio is full.
She says that jazz is on an upswing like the music itself.
Callanwolde brought in Harris for an extra camp day because the kids had so much fun with her music lessons last year.
The Art Scholars camps are part of the initiative created when Callanwolde Fine Arts Center expanded its mission in 2021 to provide Atlanta’s underserved with premier, accessible arts education while promoting the enjoyment of the arts at the historic Callanwolde estate.
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Callanwolde Executive Director Andrew Keenan says the camp is his favorite week of the year at the Fine Arts Center.
“Considering the quality of work, the appreciation and the connections they make – and just being at Callanwolde is an experience,” he said. “They’re getting something every kid should have an opportunity to do.”
Camper Amora Wright, 11, wants to be an artist when she grows up. She enjoys expressing herself through painting.
Karter Montgomery and Kyle McGuire are 10 and in fifth grade at Cedar Grove Elementary School. Both attended last year’s camp.
“I like how this place lets you express yourself in all of the classes and how they show you different forms of art and how you can use them to your own advantage,” Kyle said.
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Keenan wants to expand the camps to include more students and reach other elementary schools.
The Callanwolde Fine Arts Center’s 25th Anniversary Jazz on the Lawn Concert Series, an annual fundraiser sponsored by Audi Atlanta, will contribute to that goal.
To start the fall season, Harris and the Joe Alterman Trio are scheduled to perform “Back to School Blues,” a song she composed with the help of the campers, at the first Jazz on the Lawn concert on Aug. 23.
Harris said the jazz classes had to work together to create the song, which involved communication, creativity and common ground—the essence of jazz.
The world needs more “common ground” right now, says Harris.
“If we can just foster more of that in people’s hearts. If we could just make the common ground our friend –- wouldn’t that be lovely?”
MORE DETAILS
Remainder of the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center 25th Anniversary Jazz on the Lawn Concert Series presented by Audi Atlanta schedule:
- Sept. 6: The Grant Green Jr. Group
- Sept. 20: Pete Ayres Quartet
- Oct. 4: Eddie and Mayi Lopez Orquesta Macuba
- Oct. 18: Joe Gransden with Big Band and Three Special Surprise Guests
Ticket sales help to support Callanwolde’s mission, including community engagement programs like Art Scholars. Tickets can be purchased at callanwolde.org/events.
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