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Barry Long

Barry Long was the inaugural Samuel Williams Professor of Music at Bucknell University where he currently directs the jazz ensemble and teaches coursework in jazz and music theory. Prior to joining the Bucknell faculty, he held similar positions at Mount St. Mary's University (MD) and Roanoke College (VA).

Long was the first to receive a doctoral degree (DMA) in Jazz Studies from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY in May of 2007. He also holds a Master of Music degree in Jazz Studies from ESM while serving as a faculty member in their Community Education Division and as a teaching assistant in Film Scoring. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree in Jazz Composition from the Berklee College of Music and has also attended the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Lake Placid Institute for the Arts.

As a trumpeter and flugelhornist, Long has studied and performed with such artists as Kenny Wheeler, Bob Brookmeyer, John Clayton, Eliane Elias, Benny Carter, Jim McNeely, and Dave Stahl and maintains activity as a clinician and adjudicator. His compositional credits include honors from the Jazz Composer's Alliance as well as commissions for Clark Terry and numerous high school and collegiate ensembles. Long’s research activities include publications for Oxford, McFarland Press, IAJE, VH1, and an upcoming jazz appreciation text for Prentice Hall; grants from the NEH and Brubeck Foundation; and international presentations at conferences on jazz, popular music, and race.

His current scholarship studies the intersections of jazz and social justice, particularly during the Civil Rights movement. Conference papers and forthcoming articles include work on Amiri Baraka’s jazz and spoken word projects, the uncanny similarities between John Coltrane’s Alabama and Martin Luther King’s eulogy for the victims of the Birmingham church bombing, and the spiritual signification present within Mahalia Jackson’s and Duke Ellington’s collaborative work. A performative project, Freedom in the Air, incorporates iconic Civil Rights photography by Charles Moore, James Karales, and others with spontaneously improvised reactions to their powerful images.

Tags

Primary Instrument

Flugelhorn

Music

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