Inspired by their final Humanities unit on Duke Ellington, students broke into their own rendition of the jazz great on the last day of class. English Professor Denise Askin described the jam session as proof that “you don’t explain jazz, you dig it.” Bringing the Duke to life “by jamming — call and response, improvisation, scat singing — was their own idea, and their spontaneous gift to the rest of us,” she said. “What a wonderful way to launch their next, and most important, phase of Humanities, a lifetime of shared creativity and involvement.”

Student musicians are (l-r): David Pacific, Daniel Swegart, Ryan Burns and Michael Nicholson, all from the class of 2007. Burns was actually part of another class going on next door. When he joined to sing with the group, his classmates followed, leaving standing room only and a Cotton Club feeling of all that jazz.