I am a music researcher, author, and educator. I have been fortunate to have studied
performance, composition, and improvisation with many great
artists including Kenny Barron, Joanne Brackeen, Mulgrew Miller, Ted Dunbar, William Fielder and Michael
Philip Mossman. I have studied jazz research with
Dan Morgenstern and Ed Berger of the Rutgers
Institute of Jazz Studies and with Dr. Lewis Porter.
Right now, my jazz work (in addition to this WWW site) revolves around
the definitive biography of alto saxophonist and composer Gigi Gryce.
The book Rat Race Blues - The Musical Life of Gigi Gryce is
now
available. It has been featured on National Public Radio's "All Things
Considered" and has received favorable reviews worldwide, also winning
the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) award for
excellence in 2003. It features a
biography, musical analysis, composition index, comprehensive
discography and
bibliography as well as an extensive photo section with many
never-before seen
items. Over seventy-five interviews with family, friends and colleagues
of
Gryce's were conducted and numerous errors from previously published
works have
been corrected and myths that have been perpetuated (some for nearly
fifty
years) have been dispelled. An earlier Gigi Gryce article co-written by
Noal Cohen and me was the
cover story of the January/February 1999 issue of Coda Magazine.
Our Gryce research was featured at an IJS roundtable on November 16, 2000.
The Verve Elite series limited edition reissue of the 1954 EmArcy
albums Blakey and Introducing Joe Gordon features my liner notes
and the Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions 7-CD set includes
my biographies of the performers (available through Mosaic Records). Coda
Magazine
published my Art Davis discography in the May/June 1997 issue, the Jimmy
Giuffre discography I compiled with Matt Snyder in the July/August 1998 issue,
and a version of my Perry Robinson discography in the September/October 1999
issue. I have also contributed to publications including the newest edition of the
Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music, The Earthly Recordings of
Sun Ra by Robert L. Campbell, Rahsaan Roland Kirk by Guy Cosson and Bright Moments by John Kruth, Paul
Bley's autobiography Stopping Time, The Musical World Of J.J. Johnson
by Joshua Berrett and Louis Bourgois, Perry
Robinson: The Traveler by Perry Robinson with Florence Wetzel,
and issues of the IAJE Jazz Educators Journal (September 2002), Jazz
Research News (September 2002), the Green Mountain Jazz Messenger
and the New Brunswick Banner. The Winter 2003 issue of Signal To Noise
magazine includes my profile of the bassist Henry Grimes. I currently review jazz books for the ARSC Journal.
I have lectured on jazz at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ and at
two IJS jazz research roundtables. The notes from the first of these roundtables
are online here at my site. I serve as a consultant for the W. Eugene Smith Jazz Loft Project at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and for several jazz documentary films including Music Inn, produced by Projectile Arts.
This WWW site has been featured in a number of periodicals including Jazziz,
The Toronto Globe & Mail, Swing Journal, Marge Hofacre's
Jazz News, the IAJRC Journal, as well as Coda Magazine and the Green
Mountain Jazz Messenger. It also appears in Loren
Schoenberg's book, The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Jazz and in John F.
Szwed's book Jazz 101.
I can be reached via e-mail at mike at jazzdiscography.com