Today a new edited volume with a chapter of mine was published. My contribution — titled “Modulating Flawed Bodies: Intimate Acoustemologies, Chronic Pain, and Ethnographic Pianism” — is about a pianist’s body affects their playing. It was inspired by a flare-up of my chronic tendinitis that nearly derailed my playing while I was conducting research and collaborating with musicians in the Canary Islands. It’s by far the most personal and vulnerable writing I’ve ever published — that it even exists is a credit to one of the volume’s co-editors, Sidra Lawrence, a fellow graduate of the UT-Austin ethnomusicology doctoral program. I’ve been presenting this material at conferences and in invited talks for years and now it’s finally in print form.

In the chapter I also discuss Keith Jarrett, Michel Petrucciani, Jimmy Amadie, and some other pianists who, like me, have had to manage their playing careers amid physiological challenges. Jarrett is very well known for his vocalizations and undulations in performance, although I discuss his battle with chronic fatigue in the chapter also. Some readers may not know about Petrucciani who lived with osteogenesis imperfecta his entire life. Here’s a clip of Petrucciani performing:

In addition to my chapter, there are other authors who write about topics related to jazz: Tracy McMullen writes on Yusef Lateef and Carol Muller (a pioneer of studies on South African jazz) contributes a chapter as well.

Here’s a link to the book. (If you’d only like a copy of my chapter, email me.) I’m in the process of linking all my academic publications on this site; they are all listed on my academia.edu site.

Thanks for reading.