Jeffrey Taylor

Jeffrey Taylor specializes in music of the United States and jazz history, and has taught courses on early jazz, jazz historiography, music in the Harlem Renaissance, the history of jazz arranging, and the music of Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. He also serves on the faculty of the Graduate Center’s American Studies Certificate Program. His research interests range from early jazz to issues of race, gender, and spirituality in a variety of jazz traditions. Prof. Taylor is currently Director of the Institute for Studies in American Music (I.S.A.M.) at Brooklyn College, and he was winner of the American Musicological Society’s Claude V. Palisca Award in 2007 for his edition of solos by Earl “Fatha” Hines. He was a member of the interdisciplinary jazz study group at Columbia University until its disbanding in 2007, participates in similar groups at the University of Kansas and the Leeds College of Music, and is on the editorial boards of Black Music Research Journal and The Journal of the Society for American Music. As a pianist, Prof. Taylor focuses primarily on the work of Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Earl Hines, and other artists active from the 1910s-1930s.

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS: 

• Stompin’ ‘Em Down: Early Jazz Piano on Chicago’s South Side. Berkeley: University of California Press. Forthcoming.
• “With Lovie and Lil: Rediscovering Two Chicago Pianists of the 1920s.” In Sherrie Tucker and Nichole Rustin, eds., Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies. Forthcoming.
• Earl "Fatha" Hines: Selected Piano Solos, 1928-41. Volume 15 in Music of the United States of America. Madison, Wisconsin: American Musicological Society/A-R Editions, 2005 (Winner of American Musicological Society’s Claude V. Palisca Award in 2007).
• “Earl Hines and ‘Rosetta.’” Current Musicology: Special Issue, A Commemorative Festschrift in Honor of Mark Tucker. 71-73 (Spring 2001-Spring 2002).
• Essay and liner notes for Zez Confrey: Piano Rolls and Scores. Warner Classics, CD 0927-49309-2 (2002).
• "Life With Fatha." I.S.A.M. Newsletter 30 (Fall 2000).
• "The Early Origins of Jazz." In Bill Kirchner, ed., Jazz: A Reader's Companion. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• "Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and 'Weather Bird.'" The Musical Quarterly 82 (Spring 1998).
• Liner notes for Zez Confrey: Piano Solos (Pearl Recordings,1998).
• "Doctor Jazz." I.S.A.M. Newsletter 27 (Spring 1998).
• "Keyboard Kapers." I.S.A.M. Newsletter 26 (Fall 1996).
• "Albert Ammons," "Earl Hines," "Meade 'Lux' Lewis," "James Edward 'Jimmy' Yancey." In Charles V. Hamilton and Jack Salzman, eds., The Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1995.
• "So Long, Jess." I.S.A.M. Newsletter 24 (Spring 1995).
• "Encounters with Jazz." I.S.A.M. Newsletter 24 (Fall 1994).
• "Earl Hines's Piano Style in the 1920's: A Historical and Analytical Perspective," Black Music Research Journal 12 (Spring 1992).