jazz cd for children.?

Question

My best friends son is going to be five soon, he has just discovered louis armstrong and i want to broaden his musical jazz knowledge. Any suggestions for a compilation cd i can buy him for his birthday please?

Answer 1

That is so amazing! I've been browsing through the "music" questions on here and all I can find are questions about rap, hip-hop, and rock. You should win some kind of prize!

I myself am a trumpeter, and absolutely love Louis Armstrong; if you're going to learn about jazz, Louis is the place to start.
One great compilation is "The Essential Louis Armstrong", a box set with 2 cds, 37 songs in total. I don't actually own this set, but it sounds wonderful; the set contains both prime examples of Louis's vocal stylings as well as more instrumentals with the Hot Five and Hot Seven. Another box set is "Louis Armstrong: Hot Fives and Sevens", which is a complete collection of all the recordings the Hot Fives and Sevens ever made. However both of these are very pricey, and contain more songs than necessary for a five year old at this point in his musical education. Single cds that I can recommend are "The Best of Louis Armstrong The Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings" and Ken Burns' Louis Armstrong cd called "Louis Armstrong". Both are excellent cds and never get boring.

Other musicians you should consider getting him cds of are Jelly Roll Morton. There's a box set with him and his band (him playing piano of course; the band by itself isn't the greatest, but with him on piano, they're amazing) called "Jelly Roll Morton: 1926-1930"
Also consider exposing him to Django Reinhardt, Fats Domino, Fats Waller, Professor Longhair, Ella Fitzgerald, some blues (Memphis Minnie, Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker), some traditional Dixieland (Olympia Brass Band, Preservation Hall Jazz Band). Start him off with the earlier stuff; everything that came after came from the early rags, dixieland, and blues, and wouldn't be the same without them. True, not many kids(let alone adults) today listen to that stuff, even the ones that are interested in jazz; and that's a shame. But he's young and impressionable, so now's the time to show him that stuff. It's really great that you and his parents are encouraging this in him.
Amazon.com has thousands and thousands of cds to choose from; just type in the name of one of these artists or even just "ragtime" or "dixieland" or "blues", and tons of stuff will come up. I'm sorry I can't suggest a cd that has it all, but I hope that what I have said has been helpful. Good luck, and I hope the kid develops a real appreciation for the music.

Answer 2

I can't think of any specific jazz compilation because most jazz listeners don't buy into that stuff. I would start the child out with some rather poppy, easy to listen to jazz. In 1959 Dave Brubeck somewhat brought Jazz to mainstream with his album, Time Out. This would be a very good starting point in my opinion. You could also get a copy of John Coltrane's My Favorite Things, children seem to like this. I'm a teacher, and I play jazz when the students are working on assignments, and both of these album seem to be the most appealing to the general public of my students (who obviously don't listen to jazz on their own.)