The story goes like this, well mostly like this: Imagine if the slog that was learning multiplication tables was made kind of groovy and easier because of music and rhyme? All that time, anxiety, and head-swelling worry, and panic over tests and recitation to the teacher. In 1972, the man who made times tables groovy was Bob Dorough, hired by a New York ad company to set times tables to music. That led to an animation series and Schoolhouse Rock was born! Conjunction Junction tamed the wild world of grammar for many.
Jazz went to the school house. Dorough introduced many jazz musicians to his work with the TV show not unlike the way jazz was introduced by Fred Rogers. Education with fun; imagination, and all with the infectious swing of jazz. Dorough was so much more than Schoolhouse Rock with 70 years plus as a jazz artist with creative touchdowns with some of the genre’s greats and people outside of music too, including Lenny Bruce and Sugar Ray Robinson. His songs have been performed and recorded by many including Cecile McClorin Salvant, Jamie Cullum, Mel Torme, and Diana Krall; all animating Dorough’s engaging music.
Hey, you might say, education got a thing with that Bob Dorough swing!