Spring 2027

Jazz in 20th-century America

Jazz in 20th-Century America examines cultural influences on jazz development through historical and ethnographic works, focusing on syncretism, nationalism, and globalization.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Matt Endres

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Matthew Endres

Weekly reading responses were 200-300 words, though some students found the total reading volume high.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Recognize how past racial, gender and ethnic discrimination have constrained economic and artistic opportunities for jazz musicians. Identify how musicians challenged these discriminations to shape contemporary musical practices.

  • Explain how different musical practices developed by different African diasporic communities since 1900 have contributed to shaping the sound of jazz.

  • Demonstrate understanding of different musical practices developed by different African diasporic communities since 1900.

  • Develop critical listening skills and the ability to evaluate historically significant recordings.

  • Explain how political movements in America shaped critical responses to jazz music and how jazz musicians reacted to contemporary political events.

  • Identify how race has shaped the political economy of music in the United States.

  • Recognize how the evolution of musical technologies have shaped the aesthetic development of music.

  • Develop tools to conduct ethnographic research on jazz-influenced musical phenomena.

  • Practice forming opinions and creating arguments based on scholarship, and communicating opinions and arguments effectively.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
MUSIC 102

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

Past student reviews · Matthew Endres

Matt Endres taught a low-difficulty course with lenient grading and short weekly responses. TAs provided study guides and test answers, making exams manageable if students reviewed slides. The final essay was described as chill, and overall workload was light.

Students found Matt Endres’s lectures disorganized, noting he read directly from slides and jumped chronologically. One reviewer criticized the omission of key 20th-century artists like Coltrane. Others found lectures tedious but noted TAs made the class more interesting.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.72 GPA, 88.4% A/AB (n=320 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.84 GPA, 91.4% A/AB (n=419 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.83 GPA, 92.2% A/AB (n=321 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

MATTHEW ENDRES is recorded teaching in Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 4500

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Matthew Endres

Students described the course as very easy, noting that studying slides was sufficient for exams and grading was lenient.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.72 GPA, 88.4% A/AB (n=320 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.84 GPA, 91.4% A/AB (n=419 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.83 GPA, 92.2% A/AB (n=321 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Matthew Endres

Weekly reading responses were 200-300 words, though some students found the total reading volume high.

Past student reviews · Matthew Endres

Lectures often involved Prof. Endres reading disorganized slides, leading some students to feel the class was a waste of time.

Topics

  • Syncretism, nationalism, modernity, ethnicity, gender, colonialism, and globalization
  • African diasporic musical practices since 1900
  • Political movements and their impact on jazz criticism and practice

Skills

  • Critical listening and evaluation of historical recordings
  • Ethnographic research methods for musical phenomena
  • Forming and communicating scholarly arguments

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
MUSIC 102 · Spring 2027

Jazz in 20th-Century America

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261029T213040-0fa85c20",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:660:026419",
    "course_id": "MUSIC 102",
    "course_uid": "course_fde99ecec6a30da03e42c21f",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026419",
    "source_subject_id": "660",
    "title": "Jazz in 20th-Century America",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-29

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "01a2cdfdf63da4ca28593d91e9001c21dd2ee9d2469d20f07b2841b695841a6c",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00"
}