John Szwed

John Szwed, Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1965, is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies, Anthropology, and American Studies. His work includes ethnographic studies of Newfoundland and the Georgia Sea Islands, and Trinidad. From 1969–74, he was the Director of the Center for Urban Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania. At Yale since 1982, he has been Director of Graduate Studies in Anthropology and Acting Chair of Anthropology and African and African–American Studies. His research interests include creolization in the arts, folk music, jazz, sound and recording, and film noir. His books include: Afro–American Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives (1970), Afro–American Folk Culture: An Annotated Bibliography of Materials from North, Central and South America (1977), Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (1997), Jazz 101 (2000), So What: The Life of Miles Davis (2002). He is also President of Brilliant Corners, a non–profit music production company based in New York City and has produced recordings such as Tribute to the October Revolution in Jazz (with Rasheid Ali, Joe McPhee, Myra Melford, et al.) on Evidence, and Eight by Three (with Anthony Braxton, Borah Bergman, and Peter Brotzmann) on Mixtery. He is currently at work on a book on folklorist Alan Lomax and the politics of folklore.