As I wrap up my fifth year at UNC as Assistant Professor of Academic Jazz I wanted to share my current research and announce some upcoming presentations I’m doing:
Most immediately I’m finally defending my PhD Dissertation Prospectus entitled A Modern Creole Serenade: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives of Creole Identity in Jazz. The defense will be May 4 and is open to the public on Zoom. Email me for the link if you’re interested in attending.
In late May I will be returning to New Orleans to continue research on multiple projects centered around Creole identity and its connection to the development of jazz. I’ll be working with materials in the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, the Amistad Research Center, both at Tulane University, as well as with collections at the New Orleans Jazz Museum and the Historic New Orleans Collection at the Williams Research Center. I also have scheduled oral history and ethnographic interviews with Wendell Brunious, Don Vappie, and John Boutté.
Directly upon my return from New Orleans I’ll have just a few days at home before traveling to the Dominican Republic with UNC’s Jazz Lab Band One where UNC students and faculty will perform and present clinics and workshops for music students in Santo Domingo.
The day after returning from the DR I will head to Ann Arbor, MI to attend and present original research at the International Society of Bassist’s Convention. My research will focus on New Orleans jazz bassists of the early twentieth century based mostly on oral histories from the collections listed above.
The rest of the summer will be focused on completing the dissertation as well as preparing interview transcriptions for publication, as well as preparing for my sixth year of teaching jazz history, jazz pedagogy, and directing jazz ensembles at the University of Northern Colorado.
I’ve also been selected to present research at the College Music Society conference in Miami, Fl in October 2023. I’ll be presenting on new ways of understanding and teaching the precursors of jazz in a work entitled The First Decades of Jazz: Revisiting and Expanding Our Understanding of the Musical, Cultural, and Social Influences on the Development of Jazz into the Early 20th Century.
Whew – I’ve got some work ahead, but I love what I do!
Jazz bass, education and research
