Wow, and Wow.

Last Thursday we took a field trip to the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live. We at Sierra Madre Middle School had invited a group of music students from Eliot Middle School across town to join us on this worthy adventure. We had been planning this trip since about September, and we couldn't believe it was already here. (This can only mean that the rest of the school year will register as a mere blip on the radar screen of time.) 64 kids from radically diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds piled on to the bus, unified by one thing: their love of and participation in Music.

I took a group from Sierra Madre to the Grammy Museum last year, and it was such a hit, such a fun and interesting outing that I knew we had to do it again this year. About half my class had been last year, and eagerly anticipated this year's trip with questions throughout the year: Is the Michael Jackson display still there, and if not, what replaced it? What will our workshop be? Since it's "Grammy Week", will we see famous people? If we do, can we ask them for their autograph?

We chose to go during Grammy Week- that is, the week before the Grammy Awards- because we had been told last year that this is a great time at the Museum, with actual Grammy winners giving the programs. This year our workshop was to be a presentation by "a group of Grammy-Award-Winning Blues Musicians from the state of Mississippi". I figured it would be some old guys with slide guitars which would be fine with me. Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Son House, someone like that? Great.

As we filed off the bus a few minutes early we had time to wander around the plaza of L.A. Live which is also home to Staples Center where the Lakers play, Club Nokia and the towering Marriot/Ritz-Carlton hotel complex. Surrounded by light board advertisement, and with the bustling activity of preparations for Sunday's awards ceremony underway, the kids were snapping pictures and pointing things out to each other. Already a good day. (All this interesting activity didn't stop them from wanting to go into Starbucks, however which I nixxed...what IS it about teenagers and Starbucks? I think I could write a whole article about THAT!)

Finally it was time to go into the Museum. Nwaka, one of the welcoming education coordinators, whom we had met last year, and who greeted me with a hug, gave the kids a quick outline of the do's and don'ts of the museum, and then we went in. If you live in L.A., and love music, you really owe it to yourself to take a visit to this museum. There is so much to see and learn and play with, I don't really know where to start to describe it. Suffice it to say that the kids knew just how to enjoy the museum, and the museum seems to have been made just for them, though I feel it was made just for me too. Whatever your musical interests and tastes are, you will find historic artifacts, videos, recordings, interactive displays of all kinds. It is a small, richly packed museum, do-able in a Sunday afternoon.

After about an hour (which was plenty of time for a group of middle schoolers) we went into the Clive Davis Auditorium for our workshop. We were given a short introduction to a group called The Homemade Jamz Blues Band from Tupelo Mississippi, and then saw a video clip of the band's interview on the Today Show. All well, and good. But then...the band itself took the stage and we were treated to a short set of hard rocking original blues songs which had the kids screaming for more.

Who is this band? They are a family consisting of an 18 year old lead guitar player, a 16 year old bass player, and a 13 year old drummer, with dad on blues harp. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed that these performers were kids. They have been playing together as a band for several years now, and have toured the world.

You can check out their web page at http://www.hmjamzbluesband.com/. They released their third CD in November.

After they played for us, they pulled up some chairs and told their story. We could tell they have told this story many times, but they were very comfortable sitting there talking to a bunch of kids not much different from them, at least age-wise. Ryan told us how, when the military family was unpacking to spend time stationed in Germany, he found the guitar his dad had bought years ago and abandoned. Ryan found a mentor in Mississppi and found his blues voice there too. Kyle told about trying to learn piano and guitar and giving up...too many notes to learn, he said. But he took to the bass because it only had four strings, and he plays it like he was born to do it.  The youngest- Taya, who is 13, and a GIRL drummer- is, in fact, the same age as many of our own students. She told of being the tamborine player when she was 6 and then finding an old green drum kit left as trash at the curb and taking it home and learning it when, I think she said, she was 9. She is self-taught, but drives that band with power and impeccable time. Finally, Dad got to tell his story and his gentle, self-effacing manner told of a man bemused and delighted with the suprises his kids showed him. He joined them on blues harp only three years ago- and admitted to learning his art on youtube, but seems to have played all his life.

The boys play guitars made from car parts, mufflers, I think. This was Dad's idea, and is a catchy trademark image for a group that needs no gimmicks. Ryan told us that his guitar actually can spew colored smoke out of its "tailpipes", but that since we were indoors they were afraid they would set off the sprinklers, so they didn't use them.

One of our missions as music teachers who follow state and national standards to guide our teaching (Yes, there are such things.) is to present music to our students as a possible career, and show them ways they can make a career of their music skills and knowledge. The kids in the Homemade Jamz Blues Band sought out instruction for what they wanted to learn and have already launched a career that will carry them through their whole lives. What an inspiration!

I hope Ryan, Kyle and Taya have a long and successful career. I imagine that they will branch out, possibly play with other people along the way. They have already touched millions of lives, and I am grateful that my students are some of those. The museum was fun, and by itself a worthy outing. But meeting and hearing the Homemade Jamz Blues Band kicked our field trip into the realm of awesomeness that the kids of Sierra Madre and Eliot Middle Schools will not soon forget.