Faculty

Lewis Porter, long known as a jazz educator and author of books including the most celebrated volume on John Coltrane, is also very active as a jazz pianist, keyboardist and composer. Known for a free and open attitude, he contributes to many types of musical situations. Dr. Porter has appeared in concert internationally with such masters as Dave Liebman, Ravi Coltrane, Judi Silvano with Joe Lovano, Jeff Coffin, Jane Ira Bloom, Wycliffe Gordon, Joe Morris, Marc Ribot, George Garzone, Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway, Alan Dawson, Gregg Bendian and many others. He is a regular member of the Indian-influenced quartet Dharma Jazz with Badal Roy (Dharmajazz.net). His three-movement concerto for saxophone and orchestra will be performed by Dave Liebman in the fall of 2012. He has recorded three CDs as a leader for the Altrisuoni label--Second Voyage, Italian Encounter (live in Italy), and Transformation (duets with fellow pianist and Berklee professor Marc Rossi); and he appears on the Dharma Jazz CD Just Four and the duo CD with clarinetist and NJIT Professor David Rothenberg. The critics have said that Porter is “A helluva piano player” (Jazz Times). "Mixing experimental with traditional, [he] plays up a storm." (Midwest Record) “Porter is a deep thinker.” (Swing Journal). His music is “founded upon depth and cunning use of space" (ejazznews.com). Porter was nominated for a liner-note Grammy in 1996.

Henry Martin. With a Ph. D. from Princeton University and degrees from the University of Michigan, Oberlin College, and Oberlin Conservatory, he has pursued a dual career as a composer-pianist and as a music theorist specializing in jazz and the Western tonal tradition. His Preludes and Fugues won the Barlow Endowment International Composition Competition in 1998 and the National Composers Competition sponsored by the League of Composers - International Society for Contemporary Music in 1991. They are available on two CDs with performances by Martin on Bridge Records (Bridge 9140) and David Buechner on GM Recordings (GM Recordings 2049CD). Martin’s most recent CD is Chamber Music for Strings and Piano, released by Albany Records in 2005 (Albany TROY804). He continues to fulfill commissions for chamber music organizations and orchestras. Scarecrow Press published Charlie Parker and Thematic Improvisation in 1996. Wadsworth published his jazz history textbook, Jazz: The First 100 Years (co-authored with Keith Waters) in January 2002, with a second edition in 2005. His textbook Counterpoint (published by Scarecrow Press) also appeared in 2005. He has performed extensively as a pianist, is author of numerous articles on jazz and music theory, and is a co-editor of the Annual Review of Jazz Studies. For more information on Henry Martin, see his website: www.henrymartin.org

John Howland (Ph.D., Stanford)
Historian, guitarist, vocalist; research on jazz and jazz-related arranging traditions, music in modern media (film, radio, publishing, and the recording industry), and the connections between popular culture, jazz, and American cultural hierarchies. His book, The Rhapsodies of Harlem: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson and the Idea of Concert Jazz, was published by the University of Michigan Press to great acclaim. His second book project, Glorified “Jazz”: American Entertainment and the Melting Pot of Music, explores select jazz-derived arranging traditions across American entertainment and media of the 1920s to 1950s (from Paul Whiteman to Nelson Riddle). He has forthcoming articles in American Music and the Annual Review of Jazz Studies. Dr. Howland is also co-editor with Lewis Porter of a new peer-reviewed journal, Jazz Perspectives, which began publication in January 2007.

Institute of Jazz Studies

Ed Berger
Associate Director, author, record producer; co-author of The Jazz Text (1979), Benny Carter: A Life in American Music (1982; new edition 2002), Reminiscing in Tempo (1990), and author of Basically Speaking: An Oral History of George Dunivier (1993), and many articles

Dan Morgenstern
Director, internationally noted author, historian; former editor of the magazines Down Beat, Metronome, and Jazz; author of Jazz People (1976), and hundreds of articles and liner notes for which he has won many Grammy awards

Vincent Pelote
Sound recording preservation specialist, discographer; author of Billie Holiday and Lionel Hampton discographies and liner notes

Dr. Lewis Porter, Director
M.A. Program in Jazz History and Research
Department of Arts, Media and Culture

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
110 Warren Street
Bradley Hall, Room 254
Newark, NJ 07102-1896

Telephone: (973) 353-5600, ext. 30
Fax: (973) 353-1392

Email: lporter@andromeda.rutgers.edu

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