Jazz Walk Tour Program
Since 2008, members of the AAOrchestra have served as artists-in-residence at San Francisco’s Rosa Parks Elementary School. Coinciding with International Jazz Appreciation Month programs, Dr. Brown and Karen Kai, Japantown historian and activist conduct “Jazz Walks” throughout the school’s neighborhood. Bordering the Fillmore District and Japantown, Rosa Park School’s third-fifth graders walk with teachers and chaperons to gain a sense of history and pride about their communities. Beforehand, Dr. Brown presents in-class instruction on leading Jazz Masters, including their performances at the Fillmore’s Jimbo's Bop City, the leading jazz club during the post-war economic boom on the West Coast. Ms. Kai discusses the WWII Japanese American imprisonment experience so that students understand why it was wrong. The walk also takes them to Mary Ellen Pleasant’s mansion, the Western Terminus of the Underground Railroad, to the assembly center during WWII for Japanese Americans in Japantown, to the building housing the former Jimbo's Bop City jazz club, and then cross the Fillmore St. Bridge to the jazz heritage sidewalk plaques before returning to school.