Moody's Jazz Camp | Bringing an Urban Concept to a Mountain Town

Our Story

Moody’s Jazz Camp is the only tuition-free music summer camp in Truckee.  Founded in 2005, it has served hundreds of our town’s youth, ages 10—18 years. Jazz Campers come from a variety of ethnic, socio-economic, educational, and musical backgrounds. All young people, without regard to musical talent, are welcome.  JJ Morgan, co-owner of Moody’s Bistro in downtown Truckee, founded Moody’s Jazz Camp with a vision to bring to Truckee what he experienced in the Berkeley Public School system: a living respect for music and musicians. “The coolest kid in the school wasn’t the quarterback but the saxophonist,” Morgan said.  Moody’s Jazz Camp seeks to eliminate all barriers to music for local kids. It aims to expose our mountain youth to world-class musicians, the culture of Jazz, to the collaboration required to make music, and to their own creative limitlessness.

Our Mission

Moody’s Jazz Camp adds an essential dimension to our mountain town by bringing in world class musicians, who, through personalized mentoring, musical role-modeling, sharing the stage, and insisting on some heavy-hitting fun, guide our young people toward an appreciation for jazz and an intimacy with the art form’s inherent qualities: creativity, courage and the expression of individuality through musical ideas.

Picture This...

Picture this....

• Kids spilling out of the historic Truckee Hotel, playing music.
• Camper graduates accepted to music departments around the country, including Berklee College of Music.
• World-renowned musicians leaning into kids, sharing their genius; showing kids what grit, authenticity, sincerity, and good music looks and sounds like.
• Famous DJ’s teaching kids how to scratch rhymes onto paper, scratch records and talk about the history of music.
• Shy, uncertain kids, alongside their outgoing counterparts, developing courage, confidence and creativity in a non-competitive environment;
• Collaboration happening: across age, culture and musical talent
• Not a single sterile classroom.  Instead, drumbeats, bass lines, horns, and strings comingling with supportive shouts of “you killed it!” and hearty high-fives in Moody’s alcoves and back alley.
• Violinists and trombonists learning jazz together.
• Kids learning the history, theory and contemporary applications of our greatest national treasure, Jazz, often referred to as “the art of ideas.”
• Musicians of all ages supporting each other musically by literally becoming “background music” to each other’s solos and improvisations.  
• Beginners and experts alike expressing their individuality through musical ideas. 
• Kids forming intimate, supportive and lasting relationships with the best Jazz musicians in our country; emails exchanging hands.
• Kids performing day and night...at camp, in a parade through Downtown Truckee, at night on stage. ​