As someone who could care less about jazz, I really enjoyed this class. The lectures were two hours which would drag on but being honest, I never attended class and just reviewed the slides which provided the lectures WORD FOR WORD. Prior to the TA strike, I must have just been unlucky but my TA would not really help us in any way, and for every assignment she graded, she would give me a 4.9/5, which felt a tad dramatic. The midterm and final were easy considering each question was based on the SLIDES. Although for a GE, the work and tested material were tedious considering you are expected to memorize artists from a selected list including a song, and significant fact but the exams being online made it less stressful. The final project was on anything jazz-related, I did a research paper that got an A+ since it was graded by Bolin himself due to the TA strike, which I was fortunate in that sense.

Although I am just listing downfalls, the class was not difficult considering I got an A. LOTS OF EXTRA CREDIT WAS PROVIDED ... but, it was a lot of work for one point which felt not worth the time. As someone who put in the bare minimum, I still landed an A. Bolin is also a very understanding man, I missed a quiz due to being out of town but because I communicated with him about my absence, he allowed me to take it from home which was a relief. Following that, he then sent me a link to the recorded lecture and that saved me a lot of stress. Overall, I enjoyed the class because of Professor Bolin, As a freshman in my first quarter, it was nice to take a class that was stress-free and engaging.

This class is extremely easy and I would recommend it if you were only seeking for an easy GE and an easy A. This class however is extremely draining, not work-wise or content-wise but his lectures were possibly the most boring on the planet. There's little to no work outside of a weekly discussion about readings and a project but his 2 hour lectures (with no break) are intolerable. He often goes on tangents, calls on random students to discuss niche abstractions about jazz, and is just not an enjoyable lecturer. His exams are not about larger processes or the "big idea," but rather random names in jazz that he covered in maybe one bullet point in one lecture. His final study guide contained 79 names and the exam reflected that: not any historical concept that jazz related to or cultural evolution, but some random jazz artist that produced one song and was called "the king of [insert]." If you take this class, don't go to lecture and just study what your TA tells you to do. You'll probably be fine. Overall, wouldn't recommend this class for any reason other than to get an "A."

This class is fairly easy and manageable. The issue is, an almost two hour lecture is a little insane. The professor never fails to go off on tangents. Especially if you're tired in the morning, you're not going to remember everything that he says. Whenever I walk out of class, I ask myself, what did I even learn. I skipped like half of the lectures before the midterm and got an A on it. The slides have little information on them, but the information that is there is actually valuable for the midterm and final. The midterm is easier than the final, although the final isn't cumulative. There aren't any weekly assignments, and everyone is given notice on the due dates of every assignment from the beginning. It's relatively easy and I would recommend giving yourself enough time to complete them. The readings are pretty easy, and its only one reading per week. For midterms and finals week, he doesn't assign a reading. Overall easy work, but your grade does depend on your TA. Most if not all TAs were nice people and they aren't overly analytical/picky. I would say go to them if you need anything. Do with that what you will.

For a GE, this class was so unnecessarily difficult and time-consuming. Two hour-long lectures with no break, which would be fine if it was packed with memorable information but the professor mostly goes on tangents with his own personal jazz knowledge. If your grade didn't depend on understanding the lectures, it would be a cool class but the slides were somehow vague and also packed with randomly useless information. There are 40-50 artists named in just the second half of the class that if you aren't really (REALLY) into jazz, will all be completely new to you. I thought I liked jazz enough to know some artists, I genuinely only recognized three. Each week has a discussion post, a weekly reading ranging between 20-50 pages, and each midterm/final is three parts: a listening portion where you identify 10-12 songs by title and artist, a ~50 choice multiple choice on material alone, and an ADDITIONAL short answer portion that's take home. Even though this is a GE as in general education (as in EVERYBODY) this class seems to be for people who are either musicians or deeply into jazz. The professor is a nice guy who is genuinely really interested in jazz, but there is no reason for a three-part midterm/final AND a concert observation AND a creative project.

Professor Bolin is very passionate about Jazz and the subjects he touches on in class; however, his enthusiasm usually does not translate to the students. For each lecture, he has slides about different jazz artists or jazz styles and often just presents random facts about the artists' lives. The lectures are 2 hours long and become very boring after just a few minutes. Professor Bolin is really cool guy, but he just cannot seem to make learning jazz interesting. Maybe if you like jazz already or have a musical background you would have a better time than I did in this class, but realistically it will be very boring and you will dread coming to every lecture. Beyond the lectures themselves, the class is very easy. Every week we get a short reading about aspects of jazz, that are never discussed in class and never seem to be needed for anything besides a random discussion post you complete in your discussion section, although you could get away with writing about any jazz topic as the TA mostly grades for participation. The midterm and final consist of a few take-home short answer questions, which require around 2 citations from class material per response. The actual tests consist of about 50 multiple-choice questions that are relatively easy if you have a TA who reviews the material during the last discussion before the test. The main thing you have to study is a listening list that is provided to you at the start of the quarter. He played the entirety of the songs during the tests and you are expected to provide the songs' titles along with the artists and a fun fact about the songs themselves (all multiple choice). My TA, Courtney Blue, was super kind and approachable and although the discussion sections were somewhat boring, they were definitely better than the lectures themselves. If you can get her as a TA, the class will be super easy. She gave us review slides right before the exams and had us study exactly what was on the test. She even played some of the songs you had to listen to in class and provided us with the fun facts. She is also the one who grades your discussion posts, short responses, and final projects and seems relatively lenient as long as you follow instructions (I got 100% on all my discussion posts and short responses). The one good thing about this class is the final project, in which you are given a lot of freedom to choose what you would like to do. You have the option of writing a normal research paper (6-9 pages) on any topic that relates to jazz or creating your own project. Projects can range from your own musical piece or painting to a short film or album critique. You do have to provide a 1-3 page write-up with a creative project, but it was nice having the freedom to choose. There is also one other tedious project that is due at the end of the quarter, which is the concert evaluation, in which you have to attend an in-person concert and then do a 2-4 page write-up on it. It wasn't very fun, but it was easy enough to get done. Overall, if you're looking for an easy GE with relatively little homework and easy tests, then this is the class for you. However, be warned you will be bored out of your mind.

This class was a good easy GE. There was little to no homework except for weekly readings that you weren't tested on. I would recommend doing the readings though, because you had to write 3 short essays for the midterms and finals, and you had to use the class readings as sources. Those will be a lot easier for you if you do the readings ahead of time so you don't have to worry about them during finals/midterms. The tests were fairly easy, just review from the slideshow, but the final was a lot harder than the midterm. The materiel was pretty interesting, and I enjoyed his classes, but the lectures are two hours long which is honestly too much time. The main workload was a final project of your own choosing, but as long as you don't procrastinate on it, it shouldn't be too bad. I enjoyed this class quite a bit, but even if jazz isn't your cup of tea it is still a good easy GE

Decent GE. If you already enjoy jazz and/or understand music, definitely a plus, but not necessary.

I wanted to like this course, I really did. But the problems with it really drag it down.

Firstly, I am genuinely astonished as to how Prof. Bolin makes lectures about jazz boring. Two hours long, twice a week. And the lectures aren't even recorded, you HAVE to come in person. Personal thing but I hate when professors think they're too good to record their lectures and put them online. He can make 15 minutes feel like an hour. This is due to the fundamental problem with this course's contents, which would be much more obvious if this class was harder.

The course is almost entirely memorization. Just hours and hours of memorizing essentially trivia facts about jazz figures. The big picture trends in jazz history take a genuine backseat. The big picture things are essentially the only things on the take home short answer questions, which was jarring and essentially led me scrambling for information, as there's obviously not a lot to work with in his lectures. He asks these specific things about artists during the exams. Still, I got by fine. After both exams he has take home short answer questions, which are not bad, except he expects you to do like 3 or 4 citations from the lectures and readings per answer. These are unnecessary and time consuming. I spent way more time looking for citations than I did actually answering the questions. And the grader doesn't care, I got a perfect score plus extra credit on the first one despite having cited like 3 or 4 things total.

The final project is a fun, choose-your-own-adventure type thing. It can be tempting to be stressed out about it because there's no rubric obviously, but I had fun with it and got a perfect score. For some reason he also expects online assignments to be handed in by 5 pm and not 11:59 which is annoying and unnecessary. You also have to go to a jazz concert at some point and write a reflection on it. Writing the reflection was tedious. You have to get all these details about each musician, the composers, and the name of each piece, which is often not anywhere on the internet. So you have to jot them down, I guess? If I hadn't recorded the concert I went to with voicememos I wouldn't have had any information.

But on the bright side, Prof Bolin seems like a genuinely good guy and is passionate about the subject. It's pretty charming and manages to keep me engaged for about 20 minutes each class period despite the actual content. He does this thing where he goes around the lecture hall and tries to make students, often individual students, answer questions, which was uncomfortable.
The discussions seem disoriented and are essentially the TA trying to help students be able to recognize pieces and their composers for when they're on the exams. The readings have nothing to do with the lectures or the discussions, and ~2% of the information in them is useful for the take home short answer questions.

Overall, I would recommend this class. It's not a lot of work and you can get a lot out of it, despite the class's structure, and if you self-study.

Professor Bolin makes jazz come alive. Anyone can see that he is passionate about jazz, and it pours through his lectures, teaching, etc. If you like history and easy classes, this is the class for you.

Being a band kid through high school, I took this class as a possibly interesting GE. I definitely found some of the material interesting, but lot of it got boring, especially with the 2 hour long lectures twice a week. The only incentive to really go to lectures was random pop quizzes, but there was only one that was unannounced. I tended to just read the slides by myself.

Section Grades: (assigned by your TA): 10%
Concert Observation/Analysis: 10% (5% ea. x2).
Quizzes: 10%; 5 of them
Exams: 50%; 25% ea.
Final project: 20%

Discussions were mandatory and honestly pretty useless, but my TA was chill and the TA strike basically gave a free 100 to everyone. The concert observations are just busywork, I got mine done at the end of quarter by watching two UCLA livestreamed concerts. Quizzes as well were straightforward, there were definitely not 5 in total, so we just got free points for the missing ones. Midterm and final were online on Canvas and relatively straightforward, the listening lists were pretty easy to memorize if you put some time into it. The final project was really flexible, with a lot of options given to us, I chose to do a simple paper supplemented by a diorama and got a 100, the professor graded everyone's because of the strike. Overall, if you have some interest for music/jazz and history, I would recommend this class for a straightforward, low intensity GE.