This Jazz Man.

* This Jazz Man, by Karen Ehrhardt. Harcourt, Inc. (www. harcourtbooks.com/childrensbooks; 1 [phone]), 2006. $16.

Upon receiving this book, This Jazz Man, I was thrilled to begin reading it! The cover design conveyed a sort of retro-funk-look, and of course being about music, it beckoned for me to open it. Karen Ehrhardt has cleverly taken the old and familiar rhyme of "This Old Man" and carefully reworded it to be more contemporary and set in a jazz frame-work. For example, the first verse of This Jazz Man goes something like this: "This jazz man, he plays one, He plays rhythm with his thumb, with a snap! snap! snazzy-snap! Give the man a hand, This jazz man scats with the band." Accompanying each rhyme is a guest musician. For the first rhyme, the musician is snapping his fingers, and the author has a written a scat to accompany the finger snapping musician. The scat goes something like this: "Beee-diddly-doo-ah! ... Dooo-aaaaah!" All 10 verses of This Jazz Man are presented in this same manner.

The illustrations throughout the book are well done. The clothing illustration of each performer is awesome. Every musician wears some sort of jacket and pants combination, and always with a tie. The illustrator makes a distinction between each musician with respect to their facial features and in their clothing. A variety of hip colors are featured in plaid, stripe or even dot combinations. There is, however, one musician who does not wear the jacket--the pianist--he wears a vest.

Each musician is associated with a different instrument, such as the saxophone, piano or drums. It becomes apparent that the message of the rhyme is to feature a well-known jazz musician. For example, "5" is Charlie "Bird" Parker (1920-1955), saxophonist, and "8" is Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (1904-1943), pianist. This simple rhyme has given the author to creatively feature 10 well-known jazz musicians dating from 1878-1993. At the conclusion of the book, the author brings to life the name of the famous personage, the birth and death dates, and a brief history of who they were and what they were noted for.

The author claims to have no musical background, but she has done a superb job of crafting the verses for each musician. The scats are "hip" with respect to fitting the theme of each person and their instrument. Ehrhardt deserves a hand for writing and compiling an entertaining and informative book. The book is geared towards children ages 3-7, but adults will also enjoy the book not only for the appeal of the rhyme and artistic content, but the historical information as well. The illustrator also deserves commendation for the use of colors and textures featured throughout the book. This book merits inclusion in a music studio for a fun, yet informative book for music students to read while waiting for their lesson.--Reviewed by Adrienne Wiley, NCTM, Midland, Michigan 

* This items can be ordered via the MTNA website through our affiliation with Amazon.com. Go to www.mtna.org for more information.