During the course of Improvised Jazz and the Transcendental Experience, students will develop a strong, meaningful understanding of the American Transcendentalists. They will read a variety of important works by Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. They will write about and discuss these works thoroughly. Students will also read a number of short pieces on the nature of improvised jazz. They will write about and discuss these short pieces, and they will consider the common ground the pieces share with the writing of Whitman and Emerson. Students will listen to a variety of recorded works, particularly those of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. They will write about and discuss the recordings they listen to, focusing specifically on the recordings’ improvised passages. Students will complete a cumulative activity requiring them to consider improvised jazz as an example of - a "forum" for - the type of transcendental experience Whitman and Emerson describe. As they complete this cumulative activity, students will read and discuss James Baldwin’s "Sonny’s Blues," a short story which effectively demonstrates the transcendent power of improvised jazz.