Master's Program in Jazz History and Research

Offered by The Department of Arts, Media and Culture, Rutgers University-Newark
Website:
http://rutgers-newark.rutgers.edu/gradnwk/jazz
Contact Person: Professor Lewis Porter

Dr. Porter's e-mail (best method):  lporter@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Fax: 973-353-1392
Dr. Porter's mailing address:  Dept. of Arts, Media and Culture,
Bradley Hall 213, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102

FACULTY:
Lewis Porter (program director, historian, pianist)
Henry Martin (composer, theorist, pianist)
John Howland (historian, guitarist, vocalist)

Guest faculty have included Bill Kirchner, Evan Spring, Peter Hollerbach, and others.

Guest speakers have included Jimmy Heath, Amiri Baraka, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Ravi Coltrane, Ethan Iverson, Sonny Fortune, John Ore, Salim Washington, Krin Gabbard, John Ore, Eddie Bert, Phil Schaap, Sterling Bland, Bob Belden, Joe Giardullo, Badal Roy, Kenny Wessel, John Szwed, Clement Price, Brent Edwards, and others. We have also talked by speakerphone with Ornette Coleman, Nat Hentoff, Gunther Schuller, Dave Liebman, John Patitucci, Terri Lyne Carrington, and others.

Dan Morgenstern (author and historian, Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies/IJS) helps to advise graduate researchers, along with IJS staff members Ed Berger, Vince Pelote, Tad Hershorn, Annie Keubler, John Clement, and others.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Founded in 1997, this unique program (the only jazz history and research degree in the world) prepares people to do research, publishing and teaching; they rely on the renowned Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS), the largest public access jazz library in the world.

(Please note: The degree is offered in the Department noted above, not at the Institute. The IJS was so named by the original donor, Marshall Stearns, who hoped to start a school that never happened. This name creates endless confusion. The IJS is strictly a library archive--a great one, but with no faculty, no courses. You will be getting a degree from the M.A. Program in Jazz History and Research. You will be doing research at the IJS archive.)

The required 12 courses cover such topics as historiography, the literature about jazz, music theory and analysis, archival research, interviewing techniques, as well as in-depth studies on individual musicians, and topics such as "jazz and race," and "jazz and world music." Many students choose to take private lessons and to play in the jazz ensemble in addition to the 12 courses (these usually do not count towards the M.A. degree, but performance classes taken at nearby colleges can count). Also, private theory study, one-day writing workshops and/or a semester-long writing seminar my be required, at our discretion, in addition to the required 12 courses. (See below.) At the end of the coursework each student takes a final comprehensive exam, usually in their fourth semester while putting finishing touches on the thesis. Applicants should have a Bachelors' in any field and competence in music reading and performing. The GRE is not required at present.

Ph.D. possibilities: A PhD program in American Studies, with a partial jazz concentration (like a jazz "minor"), began on our campus in September 2007. Additional exams and courses are required, and a Ph.D. thesis on a jazz topic. For a music PhD we can recommend other universities.

While there are many bachelor's and master's degrees elsewhere in jazz performance, and a few in composition and pedagogy, this is the only degree at any level anywhere to focus on the history and research of jazz. As such, many of the courses are also not offered anywhere else.

In January 2007, Jazz Perspectives, the world's first peer-reviewed journal entirely devoted to jazz scholarship, was founded by two of the program's faculty, Porter and Howland, who were also its first editors.