Churches
Hold a Jazz Vespers service.

Commission a concert of Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts, or one of the religious works composed by Mary Lou Williams or Dave Brubeck, or another sacred composition in the jazz idiom.

Collectors
If you have extra or unwanted recordings or books, donate them to a local high school, college, nursing home, or community center.

Join the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors (www.geocities.com/iajrc/index.htm).

To honor the musicians whom you revere, make sure your collection is being properly preserved. Consider eventually donating it to an appropriate national institution.

Fans
Attend a concert by your local high school or college jazz band.

Listen to a jazz CD that is new to you. Try to stretch your ears. If you need some guidance, try The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 4th edition, by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Tom Piazza's Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz.

Read a good book on jazz.

Find a new jazz website.

Listen to a radio station that plays genuine jazz.

Go to "This Date in Jazz History" (at www.SmithsonianJazz.org), pick an anniversary, and go out find some music by that musician to explore.

Pay a pilgrimage to your favorite jazz city, or to a jazz museum, or to a musician's birthplace or gravesite.

View Satchmo, Jazz on a Summer's Day, Straight No Chaser, or another jazz documentary or performance video.

Check out the jazz offerings or find your local NPR station, on the web site www.npr.jazz.org.

Log onto a distant jazz radio station on the web. For example, KLON (www.klon.org), WBGO (www.wbgo.org), or WWOZ (www.wwoz.org) which features New Orleans music.

If you travel in the United States, use The Da Capo Jazz and Blues Lover's Guide to the U.S., by Christiane Bird, as your guide to jazz clubs and historical locations in 25 cities.

Join your local jazz society. If none exists, organize one.

Subscribe to a jazz magazines, such as Down Beat, Jazz Times, Jazziz. Others include: Cadence, Marge Hofacre's Jazz News, The Mississippi Rag, and from

Canada, Coda, Planet Jazz, and The Jazz Report.

Host jazz listening sessions in your home.

Hold a jazz-themed party in honor of a favorite musician, or to celebrate jazz in general.

Read a jazz-related poem--such as those in The Jazz Poetry Anthology, edited by Sascha Feinstein and Yusef Komunyakaa or their The Second Set: The Jazz Poetry Anthology, Volume 2.

Consider a jazz-related artwork (such as those reproduced in Seeing Jazz: Artists and Writers on Jazz, compiled by the Smithsonian Institution's Marquette Folley-Cooper, Deborah Macanic, and Janice O'Neil.)

Foundations
Sponsor a free jazz concert series in the community.

Sponsor jazz musicians performing in the schools.

Endow a chair in your local jazz orchestra, or in one of the national jazz orchestras (Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, etc.).

Support a national jazz program (such as the Smithsonian Institution's).

Support the preservation of an endangered jazz building.

Historical preservationists
Look into preserving a local jazz shrine, musician birthplace, etc.

Erect a plaque or monument to your area's jazz history. Jazz Societies

Contact your local library. Ask it to feature jazz CDs, books, and videos during April.

Ask the local museum or historical society if it would do a special exhibition or program during April.

To mark JAM, collaborate with the local museum, public library, college, public radio/TV station, arts and humanities councils, and performing arts center to create a community-wide celebration.

Organize a tour of locally significant jazz sites.

Organize a swapfest.

Link up with other jazz societies in your region to arrange a block booking of a touring jazz band.

Organize a jazz dance or jazz ball, perhaps encouraging the musicians and dancers to wear vintage clothing. Make it a festive event.

Organize a "Disc Drive" to collect unwanted or extra jazz CDs for donation to local schools, colleges, and nursing homes.

Libraries

Build a display of jazz highlights from your holdings.

Create a flyer listing that draws attention to, and lists highlights of, your jazz holdings.

Subscribe to a jazz magazine, such as Down Beat, Jazz Educators Journal, Jazz Times, or Jazziz. Others include: Cadence, Marge Hofacre's Jazz News, Jazz Educators Journal, Jazz Improv, Jazz Player, The Mississippi Rag: The Voice of Traditional Jazz and Ragtime, and from Canada, Coda, Planet Jazz, and The Jazz Report. If your library offers public programs, develop a jazz lecture series, jazz film series, or jazz concert series.

To mark JAM, collaborate with the local museum, college, jazz society, public radio/TV station, arts and humanities councils, and performing arts center to create a community-wide celebration.

Museums and historical societies
Organize an oral history project about the jazz history of your area.

Curate an exhibition about the jazz history of your area.

Develop a jazz lecture series.

Create a jazz film series. Offer a jazz concert series.

Organize a jazz symposium.

Organize a tour of locally significant jazz history sites.

To mark JAM, collaborate with the local jazz society, public library, college, public radio/TV station, and performing arts center to create a community-wide celebration.

Parents
Take your son or daughter to hear "live" jazz. One under-looked possibility: the jazz band of your local high school or college.

If the local liquor laws permit it, take your child to a night club where jazz is being performed.

Get your child together with a couple friends. Try out different tracks from jazz CDs on them, and ask them to react. Keep trying out pieces til you find some that they like. Find a CD by that artist and give it to your child.

Suggest your child log onto to www.SmithsonianJazz.org, to www.ArtsEdge.kennedy-center.org, or another child-friendly jazz site. If you live within driving range of a jazz exhibition (such as the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, in Washington, D.C.), jazz museum (such as the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City), jazz home (such as Scott Joplin's house in Saint Louis) or jazz park (the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park), take your children there.

Buy a jazz poster and mount it in your home.

If you are the parent of a child aged 4-8, read (or get your child to read) The Jazz Flyby Matthew Gollub and Karen Hanke, The Sound That Jazz Makes by Carole Boston Weatherford and Eric Velasquez, Once Upon a Time in Chicago: The Story of Benny Goodman by Jonah Winter and Jeanette Winter, If I Only Had a Horn: Young Louis Armstrong by Roxane Orgill and Leonard Jenkins, or Chris Raschka Mysterious Thelonious or Charlie Parker Played Be Bop.

Contact your local jazz society to see if it offers a jazz education program.

Performing Arts Centers Organize a city-wide "Jazz Day" or "Jazz Night" and have a city-wide JAM session.

Organize a special concert series during Jazz Appreciation Month.

Offer half-price "rush" tickets to students.

Offer free tickets to students.

To mark JAM, collaborate with the local jazz society, public library, museum, college, arts/humanities council, and public radio/TV station to create a community-wide celebration Philanthropists

Give a musical instrument to your local middle school or high school jazz band.

If the school doesn't have a jazz band, ask the principal about establishing one.

If the school simply cannot or will not do it, work through your local jazz society to offer non-curricular, or after-school program.

Ask your local high school or college if it offers a jazz history/appreciation course. If it doesn't, offer to donate some money to buy teaching materials if such a course is established.

Give money to your local public radio station in support of jazz programming.

Donate a good overview of jazz to your local library or high school. Several possibilities: such as Tad Gioia's The History of Jazz, or John Edward Hasse's Jazz: The First Century, and Bill Kirchner's The Oxford Companion to Jazz.

Public radio stations
Consider adding another network or syndicated jazz program to your line-up: Jazz Profiles, JazzSet with Branford Marsalis, Riverwalk: Jazz from the Landing, Billy Taylor's Jazz from the Kennedy Center, Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, Jazz from Lincoln Center, Jazz with Bob Parlocha, etc.

Create a locally-produced jazz radio program to your line-up.

Create and air PSAs about Jazz Appreciation Month.

Commission a documentary or series of brief pieces about the jazz history of your community, or about great jazz artists.

To mark JAM, collaborate with the local jazz society, public library, museum, college, public TV station, and performing arts center to create a community-wide celebration.

As a programming hook, focus on the jazz legends whose birthdays fall in April: Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Dodds, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Freddie Hubbard, Randy Weston, or Herbie Hancock. Public TV stations

Re-broadcast a good jazz program, such as the American Masters program on Ella Fitzgerald, or Duke Ellington's Washington, or Frame After Frame: The Images of Herman Leonard.

Students - High School
Read Gene Seymour's overview of the music, Jazz: The Great American Art.

Read Sam Tanenhaus's Louis Armstrong, Katherine Preston's Scott Joplin, Bud Kliment's Count Basie or Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday, Ron Frankl's Duke Ellington or Miles Davis or Charlie Parker (jazz biographies published by Chelsea House).

Students - Middle School
Go to the Education section of .SmithsonianJazz.org and learn about Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, or Louis Armstrong.
Read Langston Hughes's First Book of Jazz.

Teachers
Go to "This Date in Jazz History" (at www.SmithsonianJazz.org) and find an anniversary that you could use with your students.

If you are not already a member, join the International Association of Jazz Educators, Traditional Jazz Educators Network, or the Music Educators National Conference.

Get your school to buy the Beyond Category: Duke Ellington Education Kit.
As a programming hook, focus on one of the jazz legends whose birthday falls in April: Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Dodds, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Freddie Hubbard, Randy Weston, or Herbie Hancock.

Read your class a jazz poem (such as those found in The Jazz Poetry Anthology, edited by Sascha Feinstein and Yusef Komunyakaa or their The Second Set: The Jazz Poetry Anthology, Volume 2).

Have your students consider jazz-related artwork, such as that in Seeing Jazz.

Teachers - General Music
Join MENC: The National Association of Music Educators and look for forthcoming information on Jazz Appreciation Month.
Log onto www.menc.org and look for information on jazz, such as Duke Ellington, Martin Luther King and jazz, and a guide to Ken Burns' Jazz.

Teachers - High School
Get your school to purchase Beyond Category: Duke Ellington Curriculum Kit (www.PearsonLearning.com) and incorporate its lessons into your teaching.

If you teach 11th grade history or music, log onto www.jazzinamerica.org, for lesson plans on jazz.

Have your students write a skit or play based on the life of a great jazz musician. Organize a student production of that play.

Contact your local jazz society to see if it offers a jazz education program of which you could partake.

Teachers - Middle School
Get your school to purchase Beyond Category: Duke Ellington Curriculum Kit (www.PearsonLearning.com) and incorporate its lessons into your teaching.

Go to the Education Section of www.SmithsonianJazz.org to find classroom lesson plans to introduce your students to jazz, through the lives and music of
Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, and Louis Armstrong.

Purchase the special issue of Cobblestone Magazine (a history magazine for students aged 9-14) on Duke Ellington: A Musical Genius (May 1993) or Louis
Armstrong and the Art of Jazz (October 1994).

Contact your local jazz society to see if it offers a jazz education program of which you could partake.

Working Musicians
Donate a concert to your local grade, middle, or high school.

Explore a musician who is new to you.

Go to "This Date in Jazz History" (.SmithsonianJazz.org) and find an anniversary around which you could perform a piece, dedicate a tune, etc.

Ask the Music Performance Trust Fund to pay for special concerts during JAM.

Get together with fellow musicians and organize a city-wide "Jazz Day" or "Jazz Night" and have a city-wide JAM session.

As a programming hook, feature music of the jazz legends whose birthdays fall in April: Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Dodds, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Freddie Hubbard, Randy Weston, or Herbie Hancock.

	Search a sampling of the Smithsonian's jazz holdings.

Coming September, 2001!

	The Smithsonian Jazz website will feature daily jazz history facts. Content will change daily.