Ahmad Jamal, Wayne Shorter, Linda May Han Oh, John Szwed

Ahmad Jamal, Wayne Shorter, Linda May Han Oh, John Szwed and West Side Story Reimagined among winners of 2019 Jazz Awards. Congrats to all, runners-up included https://t.co/WhAZnSWHON

— Jazz Beyond Jazz (@jazzbeyondjazz) May 1, 2019

John Szwed Named New Director of Center for Jazz Studies

John F. Szwed, professor of music and jazz studies at Columbia University, has been appointed director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia. An anthropologist and jazz scholar, Szwed is the author of the recent biography, Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World. His publications range from anthropological studies of Newfoundland and the West Indies to record liner notes and jazz journalism.

Szwed has written or edited 15 books, includingSpace is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Raand Jazz 101. Doctor Jazz, a book included with the CD set, Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax, was awarded a Grammy in 2005. In addition, he has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wire, and other publications in the U.S. and Europe. He is currently general editor of the Jazz Perspectives book series published by The University of Michigan Press.

Szwed takes over the director role from George E. Lewis, Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia, who has run the Center since 2007.

“I’m very excited to see John Szwed become the new director of the Center,” said Lewis. “New leadership means new possibilities, and John’s vast academic experience, his love of jazz, and his deep understanding of the national and international impact of improvisation in culture and community all promise a bright future for research and teaching in music at Columbia.”

Szwed is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Jazz Studies Online (JSO), one of the most widely-referenced portals on the Web for jazz research. JSO recently began a two-year project to build and test a powerful database tool for research on the history of jazz with the participation of a network of noted jazz scholars. The project has received generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Szwed has also received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Read more on: http://news.columbia.edu/oncampus/2494