Faculty & Professional Staff

Professional Biography

Matthew Butterfield specializes in American music, particularly jazz and blues.  Trained as a jazz pianist, he received his bachelor’s degree in music from Amherst College in 1991, and then earned a Ph.D. in music theory from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000.  His work has been published in Jazz Research Journal, Music Theory Online, Music Analysis, and Current Musicology. He has taught courses in music theory and history at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, Eastern Illinois University, and the University of Virginia, and served as a post-doctoral fellow in music theory at the University of Chicago.  His current research explores the elusive rhythmic quality known as “swing” from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including music theory and perception, critical race theory, and ethnographic social theory.  Future projects include a book on jazz rhythm and another on jazz and rock appropriations of the blues, focused broadly on the function of race in American popular music and culture.

 

Education

Ph.D., Music Theory, University of Pennsylvania, May, 2000.  

Dissertation:  “Jazz Analysis and the Production of Musical Community: A Situational Perspective” (Advisor:  Christopher F. Hasty)

B.A. (Music), cum laude, Amherst College, May, 1991.

 

 

Publications

Published articles:

 

"The Power of Anacrusis: Engendered Feeling in Groove-Based Musics," Music Theory Online 12.4 (December 2006). 

"The Musical Object Revisited," Music Analysis 21 (2002): 327-380.

 

"Music Analysis and the Social Life of Jazz Recordings," Current Musicology 71-73 (2001-2002): 324-352.

 

Book reviews and other publications:

 

"Review of Robert Hodson, Interaction, Improvisation, and Interplay in Jazz.  New York and London: Routledge, 2007."  Jazz Research Journal 1/2  (2007): 239-249.

 

"Response to Fernando Benadon," Music Theory Online 13.3 (September 2007).

 

Presentations

"Race and Rhythm: The Social Component of the Swing Groove." Colloquium presentation, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, October 20, 2008.

 

"Why Do Jazz Musicians Swing Their Eighth Notes?" Colloquium presentation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, October 17, 2008.

 

"The Power of Anacrusis: Engendered Feeling in Groove-Based Musics."  Society for Music Theory, Los Angeles, November 3, 2006.

 

"Blue Notes and Blackness: The Formation of Identity in American Popular Musics." Representations of Blackness: Performing Africa in the Diaspora and the Diaspora in Africa (11th Annual Africana Studies Conference of the Central Pennsylvania Consortium), April 1, 2005.

 

"Can You Feel It? Engendered Feeling and the Analysis of Rhythmic Groove." Colloquium presentation, University of Chicago, April 2 2004.

 

"Music Analysis and the Social Life of Jazz Recordings." Jazz Symposium, Carolina Jazz Festival, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, March 1, 2002.

 

"Ethnic Rhythm in the Chains of Meter: Gunther Schuller and the Definition of Swing." Society for Music Theory, Toronto, November 2, 2000.

 

"The Influence of Academic Institutions on the Aesthetics of Jazz Performance." Society for Ethnomusicology, York University, Toronto, November 1, 1996

Course Information

Fundamentals

Jazz

History of the Blues

Theory 1: Basic Harmony and Form

Theory 2: Advanced Harmony and Form

Musicianship 1

Musicianship 2