Dean Reynolds's blog

Earlier this year, the Erroll Garner Jazz Project gifted the University of Pittsburgh a trove of materials relating to the career of Garner, assembled by his longtime manager Martha Glaser.

Jazz has developed virtually since its inception through a close but often uneasy relationship between recorded media and live performance. Think of the “classic” recordings that are celebrated as paragons of jazz artistry, but also of the common admonishment that any true experience of jazz is a live one, in which musicians and audience members commune with one another in a unique, never-to-be-repeated musical and social event.

Dave DeMotta is a New York-based pianist, scholar, and adjunct assistant professor at Hunter College. He holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the CUNY Graduate Center, and M.M. and B.M. degrees in jazz performance from William Paterson University. I spoke with Dr. DeMotta on the topic of his recent dissertation, “The Contributions of Earl ‘Bud’ Powell to the Modern Jazz Style.”