Lewis Porter
Lewis Porter ( born May 14, 1951) is an American jazz author, jazz pianist and musicologist.
Life and work
Porter studied at the University of Rochester (Bachelor in Psychology, 1972), Northeastern University (1976 Master's in Legal Advice, Counseling ) and Tufts University (Master 's degree in music theory in 1979 with the work The Jazz improvisation of Lester Young). Porter in 1983 received his doctorate at Brandeis University in musicology with a thesis on John Coltrane with Joshua Rifkin ( John Coltrane 's Music of 1960 Through 1967: Jazz Improvisation as Composition. ). From 1977 he taught jazz history at Tufts University and at the same time in 1980 at Brandeis University. 1982 to 1986 he was assistant professor at Tufts University, from 1986 assistant professor at Rutgers University, Associate Professor from 1990 and from 1999 professor at Rutgers University. He is currently director of the degree program in jazz history (which he has built up in 1997, when up to then only such master's degree program in the U.S.) and Jazz Research at Rutgers University. He is a regular presenter for Talk Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York and Instructor at Lincoln Center. At the University he holds courses on film history. He was, inter alia, a visiting professor at the Manhattan School of Music and New York University.
He is known for biographies of Lester Young and John Coltrane, about whom he wrote the definitive carefully researched biography ( for the biography he interviewed over 200 people ).
It also acts as a jazz pianist (also on synthesizer) and has two CDs as a leader published ( "Second Voyage " in 2002, inter alia, with Dave Liebman, "Italian Encounter" in 2007, inter alia, Furio Di Castri with, Altrisuoni ). He also plays the saxophone. 2012 had his Concerto for Saxophone ' with Dave Liebman as a soloist at the Harvard University Premiere.
He is a contributor to a Coltrane discography and was nominated for his new publication of the Atlantic Recordings of Coltrane in 1996 for a Grammy. For his biography, he received the 1999 Coltrane " Jazz Research Award" of the " Association of Recorded Sound Collections " and the "Prix du livre de Jazz " of the " Academy of Jazz" in Paris. Porter is the founder (2005) and editor ( with John Howland ) the magazine " Jazz Perspectives".
Writings
- Founder of the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians.
- Jazz, a Century of Change. Schirmer Books 1997 ( anthology of essays on the history of jazz, with own essays ).
- Michael Ullman, Ed Hazell: Jazz - from its Origins to the Present. Prentice Hall, 1992.
- John Coltrane, his Life and Music. University of Michigan Press, 1998.
- John Coltrane's " A Love Supreme": Jazz Improvisation as Composition. Journal of the American Musicological Society, Bd.38, 1985, S.593 - 621.
- Lester Young. Twayne, Boston, 1985, revised edition University of Michigan Press, 2005.
- Publisher The Lester Young Reader. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1991.
- Yasuhiro Fujioka with Lewis Porter, Yoh -Ichi Hamada: John Coltrane: A Discography and Musical Biography. Scarecrow Press. 1995 ( Institute of Jazz Studies Monographs Series).
- Co-author Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Gale Publications, New York 2000 ( Porter wrote for over 1,000 jazz musician biographies ).
- Published by John Coltrane Reference Book. Routledge, 2008.