(Even ethnomusicology at the time was not open to jazz.) So I didn’t submit it, and kind of forgot about that idea. But I couldn’t believe that any of the scholarly journals, which at the time were overwhelmingly classical in orientation, would be interested.

The audience - music professors from all the major New England colleges - was enthusiastic, and I was urged to send it for consideration to the Journal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS). He became another key mentor for me and gave me valuable feedback as I pushed to finish that chapter in time to present it at a musicology conference in late September 1979. Joshua Rifkin, renowned for his performances of Scott Joplin but also an expert on early jazz (he was called “Little Jelly” by Clarence Williams and Zutty Singleton!) - not to mention Bach, Schubert, etc. I had been accepted at Brandeis, and I was lucky that my advisor was Prof. I started writing the chapter about A Love Supreme first, in the late summer of 1979. Anderson), Bud Powell, Paul Bley, Earl Hines and others.īut once you get into the world of Coltrane, it becomes all-encompassing. Up to that time I loved his music, but not as much as I loved Sonny Rollins, Lester Young (about whom I’d already written a master’s thesis under Dr.

So I knew I wanted to do my dissertation on Coltrane. Courtesy of the artist Lewis Porter directing the concert band at Tufts University in the early 1980s.Īt the time I was directing the jazz band at Tufts University, and just applying to doctoral programs in musicology at the urging of my mentor, the music chairperson, composer T.J.

Ashley kahn a love supreme