Division of Jazz Studies | College of Music

2012-01-10

Office: Music 266 john.murphy@unt.edu If you are emailing me with a question about admission and auditions, please make the following clear in your email: your full name which degree you are applying for (bachelor's, master's, doctoral) your instrument (this includes voice) whether or not you are an international student website Phone: (940) 565-4344 I prefer email to voicemail.*

John Murphy, an ethnomusicologist and saxophonist, joined the UNT Jazz Studies faculty in 2001. He has served as chair of the Division of Jazz Studies since Fall 2008. He is the author of Music in Brazil (Oxford University 2006) and Cavalo-marinho pernambucano (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil University Press, 2008) and has published articles on jazz improvisation, Brazilian traditional and popular music, Cuban music in New York, and college teaching. He published the article "Beyond the Improvisation Class: Learning to Improvise in a University Jazz Studies Program," in Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society (2009), edited by Bruno Nettl and Gabriel Solis. He has held Fulbright (1990-91) and National Endowment for the Humanities (2000-2001) fellowships for research in Brazil.

While a student at the University of North Texas, Murphy earned two degrees (B.M., jazz studies performance, 1984; M.M., music theory, 1986), played in the One O'Clock Lab Band (1984-85), and free-lanced in Dallas-Ft. Worth. He then earned two degrees at Columbia University (M.A. & Ph.D., ethnomusicology) and played Latin music in the New York area. He plays frequently in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

Murphy teaches jazz history (undergraduate and graduate), jazz styles & analysis (graduate), and jazz research methods (graduate); and collaborates with the ethnomusicology area by serving on thesis committees. During the 2012-2013 academic year he will also serve as Interim Director of Graduate Studies. He teaches a listening class at the UNT Small Group Jazz summer workshop. He served as chair of the Division of Music History, Theory, and Ethnomusicology from 2006 to 2008; served the Society for Ethnomusicology as web editor from 1997 to 2002; and taught previously at Western Illinois University (1992-2001).
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*If you call when I can pick up the phone, I'll be glad to pick up and talk. The reason I prefer email to voicemail is because of those long voicemails where you have to listen more than once and transcribe a bunch of details. For that kind of message, email is preferred.