Blues in the schools

Program explores how music can help learning

Darryl Bautista/Journal Musicians play for students and faculty at John Jay High School in Wiccopee Wednesday. From left are Levon Helm, Little Sammy Davis and Fred Scribner.

Darryl Bautista Students and faculty applaud the Levon Helm Band at John Jay High School in East Fishkill Wednesday. From left are Levon Helm, Fred Scribner, Little Sammy Davis and Andrew Shober.

Darryl Bautista Levon Helm was formerly with The Band.

With the snap of a snare drum and the howl of a harmonica, the Levon Helm Band became part of the curriculum at the Wappingers high school in East Fishkill, where an assistant principal is writing a doctoral dissertation titled, ''The Blues and Interdisciplinary Curriculum Design.''

Smiling like an angler who just landed a prize catfish, Helm, former drummer for The Band, kept time by striking his drums like a rancher would hammer in a fence post. Playing harmonica was Little Sammy Davis, who wore a pouch full of harmonicas like a cummerbund, powder blue suit with pink tie and matching pocket square and black derby with red feather.

''Oh man, it was great,'' said Travis Hoh, a 16-year-old junior and sax player in the school band, minutes after the program ended. ''It was amazing that they came here.''

Supported by Fred Scribner on guitar and Andrew Shober on stand-up bass, this acoustic ensemble kept about 150 students and a handful of teachers tapping their toes, smiling and nodding in approval. The 40-minute, eight-song concert had the students in a musical trance, shattered only once by a single shout of ''encore'' in the middle of the set.

After the concert, Helm and Davis were interviewed in the high school's television studio by senior Adam Rivera. In front of cameras operated by students, Davis got Helm laughing from the gut with tales of growing up in Mississippi, drawing a crowd as a 9-year-old playing harmonica on the sidewalk and hitching a ride at 10 in the back of a chicken truck.

The concert was part of curriculum based on the blues. Teachers and students are exploring ways in which the blues -- a musical genre indigenous to the United States -- can be applied to different educational disciplines and aspects of everyday life.

John Jay Assistant Principal Rochelle Pyne, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, contacted Davis and asked him to perform at the school as part of the blues program. Davis, in turn, asked Helm to join in.

This educational approach fits like interlocked fingers with one mission of The Blues Foundation, a Memphis, Tenn.-based organization that operates Blues in the Schools. Helm and Davis are two of many musicians linked with the program, which provides educational resources to teachers and blues performers for use in schools.

At John Jay, Pyne said, ''Teachers wrote curricula for a subject area incorporating the blues.''

According to Pyne, a former Bearsville resident who knew Rick Danko, bass player for The Band, who died in 1999:

- History classes at John Jay are examining how the blues emerged in American culture, using pre-Civil War America and the Harlem Renaissance as two of many touchstones.

- The business math class discussed the economics of maintaining a blues band on the road during a tour -- travel, food and lodging costs and how much to charge for a gig were among the areas explored.

- The health class looked at why people get the blues and tied that into discussions of teenage suicide.

Wednesday was everyone's opportunity to hear the blues.

Understanding music

Pyne said another goal of the blues curriculum was to link the blues with modern-day music.

''This presented a very good hook for the students,'' she said. ''One of the reasons that the teachers were very excited about writing these units of study was that they recognized that music is an integral part of the daily life of many of their students. The blues has given the teacher yet another strategy.''

Hoh had a different take on the relationship between the blues and modern music.

''What an opportunity to see what else is out there besides the music we listen to,'' he said of the concert.

Jay Sieleman, director of administration for The Blues Foundation, noted the direct links between the blues and modern styles of song.

''Blues and hip-hop,'' he said, ''they're both telling stories.''

With its links to the past and present, the blues maintains a certain timelessness that on Wednesday was embodied by Myles Mancuso, a 9-year-old musician from LaGrange who sat in on bass with Helm's band. Mancuso's father Nick is a drummer who grew to know Helm while touring years ago and the relationship has landed the younger Mancuso in the spotlight.

But steering the ship Wednesday was Helm, who hoped his performance had imparted some of what music has taught him onto the crowd that had assembled before him.

''Music is food for the soul, food for the heart,'' he said, never letting go of his grin. ''You've got to have a happy heart. Without music, your soul goes suffering.''

John W. Barry can be reached at jobarry@poughkeepsiejournal.com

On the Web

- Blues Foundation and its Blues in the Schools'' program: http://www.blues.org/

- John Jay High School: www.wappingersschools.org/JohnJayHS/default.html

- Levon Helm: http://www.levonhelm.com/

- Little Sammy Davis: www.wild-rose.com/blues/littlesammy/intro.htm