Early Bird Jazz for Kids: Doug Goodkin and the Pentatonics

The Pentatonics are a special kind of jazz band: Their number-one goal is to make kids fall in love with jazz! Enormously entertaining, the Pentatonics work with young children using a hands-on, Orff-based approach to tune them in to the elements and instruments of jazz, as well as the excitement and fun. Director Doug Goodkin is an internationally renowned music educator and jazz pianist. Working via the Orff approach to music education, he is currently in his 40th year of teaching preschool, elementary, and middle school students at The San Francisco School. He also trains teachers throughout the United States and Canada and in 39 countries worldwide. His unique blend of Orff practice and jazz has created a new vision of hands-on jazz education for young children, well documented in his ground-breaking books, Now’s the Time: Teaching Jazz to All Ages and All Blues: Jazz for the Orff Ensemble. His work has attracted such jazz luminaries as Milt Jackson, Stefon Harris, Bobby McFerrin, Eddie Marshall, Marcus Printup, Andy Narell, Bill Douglas, Linda Tillery, Keith Terry, Jim Nadel, and others to visit The San Francisco School and work with his students.