Living Jazz RootED

A tuition free weekly music and dance education and performance program for under-resourced Bay Area public elementary schools.

We’re Now RootED — And Always Have Been

Formerly the Living Jazz Children’s Project (LJCP) provides jazz rooted performing arts education. As of fall 2025 the Living Jazz RootED now provides performing arts education to over 900 students in 16 public schools.

🎷 What Does It Mean to Be Jazz Rooted?

RootED means we are grounded in the powerful traditions of Jazz and the African diaspora, in the rhythms of resistance, joy, and connection.

It also means we are rooted in community, in the stories of historically marginalized cultures, and in the belief that art can be a catalyst for change.

📚 Our Curriculum

RHYTHM

Through forms like Body Music, Afro-Cuban percussion, Puerto Rican Bomba/Xica, and Hip Hop rhythm, students build cultural knowledge and mutual respect.

Students in LJR rhythm classes learn about each other’s cultural backgrounds and demonstrate unity and respect for one another in their class and onstage.
Our teaching artists instruct in their respective specialties which have included: Body Music, Hambone, Afro Cuban percussion, Puerto Rican Bomba/Xica, South African percussion, and/or Hip Hop rhythm and rhyme.

CHORAL

Singing becomes a tool for empowerment, with lessons tied to civil rights, cultural pride, and music fundamentals.

Students learn how music can be a tool for cultural empowerment and social change.
At the end of the term, they perform songs at Oakland’s only nondenominational musical tribute to Dr. King, In the Name Of Love. This event honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and features the best talent that the Bay Area has to offer. LJR students have the opportunity of a lifetime performing alongside these greats.

DANCE

From tap and turfing to folkloric styles from Brazil and Cuba, students move through jazz’s living lineage.

Our current dance faculty specialize in forms that are integral to the roots and branches of jazz music traditions. Depending on their instructor, students will learn Afro Cuban or Afro Brazilian folkloric and social dances, or Turf dancing, the prized Bay Area-grown discipline of Hip Hop dance.

🏫 Our Programming

- Build a strong foundation in music
- Develop creativity, confidence, and self-expression
- Gain cultural and historical awareness, including music’s connection to social justice
- Strengthen collaboration, empathy, and community through music
- Specialized focus in music and dance, including drumline, tap, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and turf dancing
- Offered during school day and after-school programs
- Semester-based structure, averaging 15 - 30 weeks
- Six-week in-school jazz program
- Explore jazz and the civil rights movement
- Learn about musicians who inspired social change
- Participate in singing, rhythm exercises, and interactive lessons
- Performances celebrating student learning and artistic growth
- In the Name of Love — Oakland’s only musical tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., featuring select schools alongside Bay Area’s premier artists

✊🏽 Spotlight: MLK Tribute

Each year, RootED students from participating OUSD schools take the stage at In the Name of Love — Oakland’s only non-denominational musical tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a joyful, community-wide celebration of his enduring legacy.

RootED in Jazz. RootED in Community. RootED in Justice.

Schools We Currently Serve:

* - Indicates Title One School

Oakland Unified School District

Allendale Elementary School*

Arise High School*

Burckhalter Elementary School*

Carl B. Munck Elementary School*

Claremont Middle School

Cleveland Elementary School*

Glenview Elementary School

La Escuelita Elementary School*

Melrose Leadership Academy*

Piedmont Avenue Elementary School*

West Contra Costa County USD

Bayview Elementary School*

Highland Elementary School*

Mira Vista Elementary*

Nystrom Elementary School*

Shannon Elementary School*

Tara Hills Elementary School*

REACH OUT ABOUT BRINGING ROOTED TO YOUR SCHOOL

Rhythm Instructor
Multi-instrumentalist, Abel Damasceno, is a native of Salvador, the capital of Bahia, Brazil, and has lived in the Bay Area since 2007. Abel has studied various rhythms of Bahia since the age of 12 from esteemed masters including Bira Monteiro from Funceb Pelourinho.
Abel Damasceno, professional Brazilian Multi-instrumentalist, is a native of Salvador, the capital of Bahia, Brazil, and has lived in the Bay Area since 2007. Abel has studied various rhythms of Bahia, including from esteemed masters like Bira Monteiro from Funceb Pelourinho.
Abel has played with Brazilian renowned artists such as Carla Visi, Mariene de Castro, Margareth Menezes, Carlinhos Brown, and Tonho Materia from Olodum. He has brought his talent to different states in the US and Canada including participation in the opening of the Rolling Stones 50th anniversary DVD in New York. In the Bay Area, Abel was the founder of Batala San Francisco and currently performs with several bands including Sambada and “Grupo Sambay”, which he leads.
As an educator, Abel has worked as a teaching artist for Cheza Nami Foundation, Get Empowered, Music in Schools Today, Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, and currently with Living Jazz Children’s Project.
Choral Instructor
“Branice McKenzie sings with a sensitivity, intonation and eloquence that mark her as a fine proponent of Jazz in song” ~ allaboutjazz.com
With her four-octave range, this artist has partnered with greats touring the world from Harry Belafonte to Gregory Hines, Hugh Masekela, Roberta Flack, Dianne Reeves and Iyanla Vanzant to name a few. She has graced the stages of The Newport Jazz Festival to the Umbria Jazz Festival, from Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow to the great Carnegie Hall in New York City. Ms. McKenzie is an award-winning composer, has garnered a 14 year tenure as Vocal Faculty at the stellar Oakland School For The Arts and is the Founding Minister of Music Emerita at Heart and Soul Center of Light in Oakland, CA. Most recently, Branice garnered the honor of being nominated by the Bay Area Theatre Awards for Best Music Direction.
As an educator, Branice has worked as a teaching artist weaving it into her life as a performing artist. Her workshops are innovative and they ignite the childhood in children. As a composer, Branice moves brilliantly from Jazz to Gospel to Children’s Music (that resonates for the child in us all).
Branice received her B.A. in Psychology from Brown University and an M.A. in Music Education from New York University.
She is an educator, a vocal alchemist and a voice for our time.
Choral Instructor
Bryan S. Dyer is a multi-talented musician who not only sings but plays and teaches several instruments including bass guitar, percussion and piano; writes and arranges music, conducts choirs and groups, and works in television, radio and film. A veteran of some of the Bay Area’s top vocal groups including Street Sounds, SoVoSo, Slammin All Body Band, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, CHELLE! and Friends and Bobby McFerrin's-MOTION. He also performs with The Funk Revival Orchestra, Rankin Scroo and Ginger, Juke Joint and the percussion and dance ensemble, Crosspulse.
His musical experiences have taken him around the globe including several trips throughout Europe, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Jamaica and many legendary stages including Montreaux Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and Lincoln Center in New York. Bryan’s talents have landed him alongside such artists as Al Green, Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the soundtrack for the movie “La Mission” with Benjamin Bratt, and recording and performing with Huey Lewis and The News to name a few. He is also a member of The Recording Academy and a voting member of The Grammy Awards.

Rhythm Instructor
Casey Tessier is a tap dance artist and award-winning percussionist from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Based in Oakland, California, she is a nationally touring performer with San Francisco polyrhythmic company, La Mezcla, a member of Sarah Reich’s Tap Music Project Team, a resident artist with TapIN Youth Dance Ensemble, and the Percussion Caption Head at Fremont High School.
Tessier holds a B.S. in Pure Mathematics and Latin from the University of New Mexico. Her studies continuously inform the creative direction of her debut ensemble, Accenτap, rooted in the interdisciplinary veneration of vernacular jazz traditions and the African American Diaspora.
Tessier has performed as a tap dancer and jazz percussionist in Italy, Mexico, Canada, and throughout the United States and she has devoted her life to honoring, sharing, and advancing percussive dance as an instrumental medium for representation, communication, and inspiration.
Rhythm Instructor
Drummer Darian Gray‘s precise, deep-pocket style has made him a first-call session and touring pro -- not just in his home state of California, but across North America and beyond.
Supporting such luminaries as Cee-Lo Green, Booker T. Jones (of Booker T and the MGs), Ledisi, and Goapele, Gray has appeared on The Jay Leno Show and Live With Kelly and Michael (Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan).
His rock-steady, right-on-the-money grooves earn Darian Gray those in-demand gigs, and they are grounded in deep roots. He developed those hard-earned beats over decades of Sundays playing in the church. He picked up the sticks at age two, and was out gigging by the time he was six

Gray takes pride in being a quick study. His ability to learn detailed, varied, multi-set shows quickly and accurately has helped spread his reputation among managers and musical directors. Whether you need a rock-solid ringer in soul, funk, rock, gospel, or pop, Darian Gray is the first drummer you want to call.
Dance Instructor
Representing Rock Force Crew & Assassins Crew is a world class dancer and educator from Oakland, CA. As an ambassador of Oakland, and the Bay Area, Intricate is credited to being on the forefront of spreading the artform of T.U.R.F dancing worldwide. T.U.R.F dancing (an acronym for Taking Up Room on the Floor) or "turfing" is a regional dance style created in Oakland. It is the current expression of Bay Area culture and music through movement Intricate is also recognized as being an elite Tutter. Along with his collective, Tutgodz, he is consistently elevating the style of tutting.. His ability to mix tutting and turfing styles have enabled him to perform and compete globally on a global stage. A few notable international championships include, RF Jam in Vietnam with Assassins Crew, 2x WOD champion, Redbull DYS Champion & finalist in Just Dance it Out in Bali, Indonesia, 2x guest invite Fusion Concept Paris, France. Intricate has also performed with hip hop artists such as G-Easy, Troyboi, and Kendrick Lamar. With 19 years of experience, Intricate continues to travel the globe, competing, and educating by sharing Bay Area west coast culture.

Rhythm Instructor
Héctor Lugo is a percussionist, singer, songwriter, researcher and educator. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he grew up immersed in the creole music and culture of the Island. He moved to the Bay Area in 1989 to pursue graduate studies in sociology and Latin American history and soon thereafter began to work in the Latin, jazz and Afro-Caribbean music scenes. Héctor has recorded with a wide range of artists and performed in venues across the United States and internationally with the likes of Louie Romero and Grupo Mazacote, Bobby Céspedes and Conjunto Céspedes, the late great Luis Daniel “Chichito” Cepeda’s Los Cepeda Ensemble, Modesto Cepeda and Cimiento de Puerto Rico, Larry Vuckovich’s Jazz-Latin Quartet, the John Santos Sextet, salsa legend Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez, Jackeline Rago and the Venezuelan Music Project, and son jarocho masters Gilberto Gutiérrez, Patricio Hidalgo, and Liche and Rubí Oseguera, to name a few. He is the founder and director of Latin Roots band La Mixta Criolla. His compositions and arrangements have been featured in the acclaimed compilation “Salsa de la Bahía,” vol. 2 (Patois Records, 2015), in the documentary film “Dolores” (2017) about the life and work of the great labor organizer and feminist leader Dolores Huertas, in La Mixta Criolla’s album AfroTaíno (Round Whirled Records, 2011), and in theatrical productions in San Francisco, New York and Seoul, Korea.
Héctor is one of the pioneers of the bomba movement in California. In 2000 he founded and has since co-directed The Bay Area Bomba y Plena Workshop, and is a founding member of bomba ensembles Cacike y Kongo and Aguacero. He is also a committed and experienced educator who has collaborated in the design and implementation of music and arts integration programs with SFJAZZ, the San Francisco Symphony, Oakland Youth Chorus, Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, San Francisco Community Music Center, and the San Francisco, Berkeley, Albany and Oakland Unified School Districts. He has guest lectured on the sociology and history of Puerto Rican music at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State University, Mills College and Humboldt State University. Presently, besides his musical practice, Héctor works as Teaching-Artist for SFJAZZ and a faculty member of Living Jazz. He is also a Little League baseball coach and a passionate cook specializing in, of course, Puerto Rican creole cuisine!
Rhythm Instructor
Javier Navarrette is a professional percussionist, musician, composer, arranger, and educator living in Oakland, California, specializing in Afro-Caribbean music. Javier’s performance and recording career spans over three decades.

Amongst the many greats he has played with are: Poncho Sanchez; Los Van Van; the Conga Kings: Francisco Aguabella, Carlos “Patáto” Valdez, and Milton Cardona; as well as with jazz legends such as Jon Faddis; Tootie Heath; Jerry Gonzalez; Trini Lopez; and Nestor Torres. He had the honor to perform with the late Aretha Franklin at the Oakland Coliseum in her last concert tour. He toured with Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, and Bobi Céspedes, as well as performed with popular groups such as Ozomatli, and Los Mocosos. Javier has recorded on three Grammy-nominated albums with John Santos and the Machete Ensemble/Folklorico Kindembo.

Javier studied with masters in Cuba such as Miguel Angá Díaz; Jose Luis “Changuito” Quintana; Folklorico Nacional de Cuba; and with Bay Area masters John Santos; Michael Spiro; and Jesús Díaz. In 2022, Javier received the artist scholarship award with Plaza Cuba Travels to study music at La Escuela Nacional de Arte in Habana, Cuba.

He teaches music in public/private schools and in adult workshops. For the past 10 years, Javier has been teaching with Living Jazz Children’s Music Project in the Oakland public schools and at the summer Jam Camp for Children. Javier produces Modúpue Sundays with Arts at the Basin, Rocky's Market, Brooklyn Basin, Oakland, and the Neighborhood Sessions at The Annex in El Cerrito, both musical events presenting the Bay Area’s legendary musicians in the Afro-Latin music Scene.
Dance Instructor
Johnny Anthony Lopez better known as “Johnny5” was born in Oakland, California on December 18th, 1989. He is a 32 years old Mexican/Latino, professional Turf Dancer, and the founder of TURFinc, a local Oakland/Bay Area based company that hopes to instill positive changes in the community through dance. Johnny is involved in every single aspect of his company from talent scouting to MC’ing the events. TURFinc is currently on its 100th event and there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Along with being an entrepreneur, Johnny5 also gives back to the community by teaching dance classes all over SF-Bay Area, California, amongst many other local venues. In the near future, he hopes to have a global impact and travel around the world teaching TURF dancing and using it as a healing mechanism for Trauma while taking TURFinc to the next level by opening up his very own dance studio to serve the community of Oakland/SF-Bay.

Rhythm Instructor
Jules Hilson is a percussionist and youth teaching artist based in Oakland, CA. Their interest in Latin and Afro Caribbean music began in 2003 when they joined a Brazilian batería in Eugene, OR.

Following generations of roots in Oakland, they moved here in 2008 to reconnect and pursue these interests with teachers including Jorge Alabe, Sandy Pérez and Elizabeth Sayre. Jules is a committed student of Afro Cuban traditional drumming and other percussive lineages that weave the story of the Americas.

Current musical projects include playing in the Afro Cuban percussion ensemble of the all-female Arenas Dance Company, Cumbia psychedelia storytelling band Ritmos Tropicosmos, and world music brass band Mission Delirium. Previously, they have played in many other diverse groups, including several Brazilian percussion ensembles and reggae-themed cover bands, and were a founding member of some local cumbia projects.

Jules continues to teach music in public schools in the Bay Area, where they work through music to bring positive messages about the beauty of global interconnection and the hopeful future of California youth.
Rhythm and Dance Instructor
Kim Agnew is a multi-disciplined dancer, choreographer, visual artist, percussionist and educator. Kim has a B.A. in Fine Arts with emphasis on Sculpture, Jewelry and Dance. She has over three decades of dance training and performance guided by master teachers from around the world. Kim has been creating art, performing and teaching art, dance and music in the greater Bay Area since 1996. She believes in the power of creativity and encourages all humans to explore, create, enjoy, collaborate, grow and see the world through art, dance and music.
Rhythm Instructor
Patricio Angulo has been residing in the Bay Area since attending UC Berkeley in 1995, where he majored in Molecular & Cell Biology and minored in music. Originally from Los Angeles, he studied classical percussion before discovering the world of Latin rhythms. In the Bay Area, he has studied intensively under world-renowned percussionist Michael Spiro.

He has performed and/or recorded with international and local artists such as Yeni Valdes & Roberton of Los Van Van, Danny Lozada (former lead singer for one of Cuba’s top acts, La Charanga Habanera), Los Tigres del Norte, Dr. Loco and his Rockin’ Jalapeño Band, Fito Reinoso’s Ritmo y Armonia, LoCura, and Rumbaché. His current projects include:

- Musical Director, Founder and Percussionist with the Bay Area’s 11-piece salsa & timba orchestra, Rumbaché Timbalero & Musical Director with Fito Reinoso y su Ritmo y Armonia,
- Conguero & Musical Director with the Afro-Cuban Latin Jazz group, The Sonando Project.

Dance Instructor
Ramon Ramos Alayo founded Alayo Dance Company in 2001 and is currently the resident company of CubaCaribe. As director and choreographer, his work is an innovative fusion of Afro-Cuban modern, folkloric, and popular Cuban dance. He eloquently articulates his aesthetic vision through a synthesis of these dance styles, citing from each tradition, movements, narratives, and concepts indicative of Cuban culture. It is far more diverse than most of the modern dance circuit. In Cuba, at the National School of Arts, all dance students are taught modern and traditional styles of dance and music, and the forms are not considered as disassociated as they are in the United States. Combining elements of both to produce Afro-Cuban contemporary dance allows the artist to tell a rich story from a broad palette of movement styles that is indicative of Cuban culture, but the combination of which is rarely seen in the Bay Area.

Alayo Dance Company was featured in "Dance Across America," published in National Geographic Magazine (2006). The Company has performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at venues such as Theater Artaud, ODC Theater, Dance Mission Theater, Herbst Theater, Laney Theater, Sonoma Country Wine Theater, and La
Choral Instructor & Accompanist
Simon Russell is a singer/pianist/composer/lyricist born in Hempstead New York and has been performing for the last 37 years with some of the worlds best musicians. Including Pete Escovedo, Sheila E, The James Brown Band, El Debarge Performed for Quincy Jones for Black History month. Simon received most of his training under Jazz Masters Rafael Grinage (bass player for Earl Father Hines) and Jim Grantham (retired Professor at Berkeley in Boston and San Francisco State). He is currently working with the Oakland Symphony. As an educator of 17 years, Simon has been the founder of two music schools and a non-profit to raise awareness for music education for underserved youth. He was the Senior Choir Director for the La Honda Camp 2022. And he is currently the Choir Manager for the Oakland Symphony.
Dance Instructor
Tainah Damasceno Harvey is a teaching & performing artist, producer, and Artistic Director of BrasArte: a Berkeley CA based cultural arts non-profit. Her work is primarily focused on cultural arts education-- sharing with people of all ages across the Bay & USA how multiplicit Brazilian culture, history, and dance can be. Tainah began dancing at the age of 3 with her mother: Brazilian culture bearer Conceicao Damasceno, followed by five years at the San Francisco Ballet School. Later on, she reconnected with her roots and began studying Brazilian folkloric and contemporary dances with renewed intensity under various master artists from diverse regions of the country. Today she continues her research in the Reconcavo region of Bahia (birthplace of the samba, maculele & capoeira), as well as touring as a teaching artist in the United States and performing in the Bay Area. In her 10 years of teaching, Tainah’s goal has been to offer an inclusive, safe space for expression, and for participants to dive into the joy and force that permeates Brazilian culture.

Living Jazz RootED Project Overview

OUR STORY

In 2005, Living Jazz answered a call.

That year, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) shared a pressing need: many of its most under-resourced schools lacked access to music education. Students were moving through the school system without a foundation in music, making it difficult to succeed in higher-level band and music classes. More importantly, they were missing out on the joy, creativity, and transformative power that music brings to the classroom.

Living Jazz responded by founding the Living Jazz Children’s Project (LJCP)—a program designed to meet this critical need and serve as a pillar for sustaining arts education in public schools.

Drawing from our network of inspiring teaching artists—many of whom come from our broader programs and camps—LJCP launched in a small number of Title I schools across OUSD, introducing young students to high-quality music instruction.

In 2022, the program expanded in two major ways:

We partnered with the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD), extending our reach to students in Richmond and San Pablo and increasing the number of children served by one-third.
We broadened our curriculum to include dance education, giving students access to Afro-Cuban and Brazilian diasporic dance, as well as Turf Dancing—a street dance style born in Oakland in the early 2000s.

Today, in 2025, our program has grown and evolved into RootED—a name that fully reflects the heart of our mission. RootED now provides performing arts education to over 1,800 students across 21 public schools in Oakland, Richmond, and San Pablo.

What began as an urgent response to a gap in education has become a deeply rooted, ongoing commitment to the power of music and dance in the lives of young people.