The school raised about $5,000 to benefit their students through a virtual jazz party on Monday hosted by five-time Grammy Award-winning musician Questlove, who is the frontman for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon s in-house band The Roots. It kind of fell into our laps, fourth-grade teacher Rebecca Nicholson said. With a lot of planning on the lesson end of it, but a little bit of luck with how it came to be. The event titled Rent Party Jazz was inspired by the children s book of the same name by author William Miller about New Orleans in the 1930s. Rent Party Jazz is required reading in Morningside s curriculum, as it deals with issues such as poverty, racial inequalities, and eviction.
PITTSFIELD â To develop an educational unit for Morningside Community School fourth graders based on the book, âRent Party Jazz,â educators reached out to a world-renowned musician for guidance, but received so much more.
Set in the 1930s, the book by William Miller tells the story of Sonny Comeaux, a boy whose mother loses her job, with rent payment soon due to an unsparing landlord. As his worry mounts, Sonny encounters a jazz musician who brings the community together for jazz party to raise money for their rent â in a story Morningside teachers based a multi-disciplinary educational unit that delved into issues of activism, racial and economic injustice and more, said Principal Monica Zanin.