Natalie Mafera

Ms. Pappas
DANC100 SEC. 4
4 December 2015
What a Wonderful World Jazz History Rendition
For this Masterpiece project, I decided to write a song about the history of Jazz dance.
During the song. I mainly focus on the introduction of the Minstrel show in the 1830s and how
many people enjoyed making fun of this specific type of dance. During our class discussions
about jazz, we watched a short video of what certain shows during that era would have look like.
Presented from these videos, the performers were mainly white people who painted their faces
black in order to look, talk, and act like the black slaves during that time period.
These acts were racism in its most blunt form. Although many white people were
involved in these minstrelsy acts, sadly, many black people were driven to so much poverty that
the only way to receive money was to make fun of their own culture by performing on the stages
and singing. These type of movements were the introduction of jazz. Jazz movements included
tap dance, and other dance forms that needed extensive area space.
For this project, as I previously mentioned, I re-wrote the lyrics to a very famous jazz
styled song: What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. During one of the readings we did
for class, one of his quotes was incorporated in explaining jazz. If you have to ask what jazz is,
you'll never know. I have learned so much about jazz from class that I had never known about
before.
The lyrics that I wrote for the song are only a brief overview of the history. During the
song, I wanted to present a visual demonstration of the words I was singing. I imagined using

shadow puppets would be the most entertaining way to stay focused on the words of the song
and look to understanding what kind of history this dance form endured. I also wanted to add the
lyrics into this paper in order to emphasize the story being told through the words of this song.
Its all in Black and White, The time of old Where people changed

the meaning of gold and I wondered what kind of impact jazz history
leave behind. Its story begins way down South. Those racists folks,
well, they have quite a mouth and they laughed and cheered at the
jazz dance that appeared. They plastered their face black and
stumbled around on stages - tapping toes and making comical
sounds. Turning tap jazz movements into some kind of joke, giving
this kind of talent all lost hope. But as the centuries went on this
minstrelsy way was forgotten cause, boy, it was time for change. This
dance Ive told is now proudly held as gold.
I chose this song because it is a well-known jazz styled song and talks about how
wonderful the world is and what certain things make the world this way. The chords used in
this song are also very intricate and have a jazz style chord progression (D, F#m, G, D, Gb7)
and also incorporates other chord progressions (A, D, G, Em) At the same time, I wanted to
have a song that described something wonderful, but explain the hardships of this dance as
well. I hope that this piece of art incorporates the history and the figurative, symbolic
representation of jazz today.