I found this class very interesting. I knew nothing about jazz coming into class, and now know much more than I thought I would. Be prepared to memorize songs. Most of the questions on the midterm is listening examples. I think there were around 90 songs by the end of the class. This was manageable as long as you listened to them throughout the course and did not wait until the last minute. The lectures were a little boring at times, especially when he played the entirety of a song. Mos to of the questions from the midterm come straight from his slides. The essay was not bad. It was 5-7 pages and you had like 5 prompts to choose from. There was an extra credit opportunity to go see a free jazz concert at UCLA. You get an extra 5 points added to your grade for attending this and writing one page about it.

If you had any interest in jazz, this class will kill it. Yes, you read that right. It will KILL IT. I was very fascinated by jazz and its influence and place in music and history, but even though I learned more after attending every single lecture in this course and reading the course material, it was the way the material was taught that made me turn my interest and liking towards jazz into dislike.

The lecture is not mandatory, but the professor does not post the slides online. If you are lucky, you can get the notes from someone else in the course. I personally attended every single lecture, even though it really dragged on. More than half of the lecture time was spent on the professor playing these long compositions. Another portion of the lecture was towards archival footage and documentaries, and only a short amount of time was spent on the content. The professor didn't add too much information apart from what he read off of his slides.

The discussion section was lame. It felt like a true waste of time because it didn't prep us for the tests. My TA was nice though. There are assigned readings for the course via the textbook, but they were unnecessary. You can find the book online for free.

I took this class because I thought the grade distribution looked kinda nice. After the midterm, I had fooled myself. The midterm consists of multiple-choice listening examples. It seems easy enough, but if you are just getting familiar with jazz and the various musicians and styles, it can become very confusing. Hence why people say that all jazz sounds the same. I listened to at least over 200 hours of jazz for this class. I'm going to push it and say over 300 hours, at least.

If you want to save your sanity and be able to listen to other music other than jazz for an entire quarter, DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE, and yes, I know that I got an A+, but it was not worth any of my time. If you need this class to fulfill a major requirement, go ahead.

Grade Breakdown:
10%- 5-7 page paper (this should be worth at least 25% IMO)
20%- Discussion
30%- Midterm Exam
40%- Final Exam

If you have any interest in jazz music, I'd recommend taking this class. I took it as a GE, and I discovered some really great music. The 2 hour lectures in the morning can be draining, but usually there's not too much in the way of notetaking. A good chunk of each lecture is taken up by the professor playing a song or a portion from a documentary. The lectures aren't podcasted and the slides aren't posted online though.
In terms of workload, it's pretty light. There's a paper due towards the end of the course that was graded pretty generously. You do have to keep track of the songs the professors posts though, as they make up the majority of the exams. In the end, the amount of songs amounted to a little over 80, so it is quite a bit, even though most of them are really enjoyable. I'd suggest making a Spotify/Apple Music playlist for easy studying and listening.
Overall, I'd really recommend this class as an easy GE, especially if you have an interest in jazz music.