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Alabama Shakespeare Festival Enter for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

From Marsalis, Jazz Profiles in Verse for Kids

Wynton Marsalis puts down his horn and picks up his pen for his latest project. It's a book called Jazz ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits, and in it, Marsalis shares his deep knowledge of jazz in all its forms with children.

Marsalis jitterbugs his way through the alphabet, profiling 26 jazz legends -- from Louis Armstrong through Dizzy Gillespie -- through a variety of poetic forms.

At first, Marsalis considered writing poems and music for each portrait. But the thought of writing music for these jazz legends just didn't seem right.

Here are a few poems from the collection:

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