Oaktown Jazz Workshops (OJW) is a non-profit, community based, cultural education organization dedicated to passing on the tradition of jazz music to young people through music instruction and educational presentations. Oaktown Jazz Workshops offers intensive instructional workshops and classes for young musicians, ages 10-18. By employing professional jazz musicians as instructors, Oaktown Jazz Workshops uses a more traditional model of jazz instruction to offer a distinctive approach that gives students a foundation in the jazz fundamentals of improvisation, arranging, and learning to play by ear. Our students benefit from their instructors’ collective years of experience as performers and their highly developed sensitivity to the unique dynamics that set jazz apart from other disciplines. Founded in 1994 and based in Oakland, California, OJW celebrates jazz music as an American indigenous art form of profound and artistic significance. A complex and enjoyable music as well as an important indicator of American history, jazz offers a rich legacy that has touched the lives of each generation and continues to be a critical component of contemporary culture.
