Professor Tony Whyton

Office Times

By appointment

Biography

Professor Tony Whyton joined the School of Media, Music and Performance in 2007. His work deals specifically with music and its place within the creative industries, from the packaging of popular music to the iconic representations of jazz artists. Tony has published widely on a variety of related topics, including jazz history, the politics of music education, the cultural influence of recordings and interdisciplinary approaches to music. His research has been disseminated internationally within university settings including Yale University, McGill University Montreal, Charles University Prague and the University of Jyvaskyla Finland and, in May 2007, he was invited to the University of Melbourne as a visiting research fellow at the Victorian College of Arts.

Before joining the School of Media, Music and Performance, Tony was responsible for the creation, management and strategic development of the Centre for Jazz Studies UK at Leeds College of Music. Tony's work champions the relationship between theory and practice and encourages performers, composers and musicologists to engage critically with music as a discursive cultural practice.

Teaching

Tony’s areas of expertise for teaching, research and PhD supervision include music as national/trans-national practice, jazz cultures, popular musicology and interdisciplinary approaches to musical scholarship.

Research Interests

Over the past 15 years, Tony has developed an international reputation for his research work both in terms of individual outputs and research leadership.  He has played an important role in promoting research as an enterprise and knowledge transfer activity, working closely with a variety of academic and professional bodies and disseminating my work in different international contexts.  Tony’s first book, Jazz Icons: Heroes, Myths and the Jazz Tradition, was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2010, and his second book, Beyond A Love Supreme, is a cross disciplinary study of the musical and cultural influence of John Coltrane’s seminal album (to be published by Oxford University Press in May 2013).

In addition to his single-authored book projects, Tony edited the jazz volume of the 8-volume Library of Essays on Popular Music with Ashgate in 2011 and contributed chapters to Eurojazzland, the first authoritative collection of writings on European jazz, with Northeastern University Press, and Popular Music Fandom (Routledge) edited by Mark Duffett.  Since joining the University of Salford, Tony has published several refereed works both as a single author and as a colloborator in his role as Co-investigator for the ESRC-funded IMP: Comparative Studies in Advanced Musical Learning.

Qualifications and Memberships

Qualifications

Sept 2000 PhD University of Leeds

July 1995 MMus Goldsmiths College, University of London

July 1994 BA (Hons) in Music, University of Leeds

Memberships

Co-editor: Jazz Research Journal (Equinox)

Memberships: Jazz Research Network, PRS

Board member: Un-Convention

Publications

(i)           Books

Whyton, T., Beyond A Love Supreme (New York: Oxford University Press, [in press])

Whyton, T. (ed.), Jazz [Library of Essays on Popular Music] (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011, 544pp        ISBN: 978-0-7546-2951-1

Whyton, T., Jazz Icons: Heroes, Myths and the Jazz Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

(ii)          Refereed articles and book chapters

Whyton, T., ‘Brilliant Corners: The Development of Jazz in Higher Education’ in Papageorgi, I and Welch, G (eds.), Investigating Musical Performance (Farnham: Ashgate, forthcoming)

Whyton, T., ‘Song of Praise: Musicians, Myths and the “Cult” of John Coltrane’ in Duffett, M (ed.), Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles and Practices (New York: Routledge, [in press])

Whyton, T., ‘Europe and the New Jazz Studies’ in Cerchiari, L., Cugny, L., and Kerschbaumer, F., (eds.), Eurojazzland (Northeastern University Press, 2012), pp.366-380.

Whyton, T [trans. V. Cotro], 'Four for Trane: le jazz et la voix désincarnée', in: Cotro, V (ed.), John Coltrane: L’oeuvre et son empreinte  (Outre Mesure: Paris, 2011) pp.149-164

Whyton, T., ‘The Changing Discourse of Jazz as Popular Music’ in Whyton, T. (ed.), Library of       Essays on Popular Music: Jazz (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), xi-xxiii

Whyton, T., ‘Four for Trane: Jazz and the Disembodied Voice’ in Whyton, T. (ed.), Library of        Essays on Popular Music: Jazz (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011)

Whyton, T., ‘Jazz Research in Britain’ Jazzforschung/Jazz Research 42, (November 2010), pp.131-146.

Whyton, T., ‘Acting on Impulse! Recordings and the Reification of Jazz’, Recorded Music: Philosophical and Critical Reflections (Mine Dogantan-Dack (ed.)).Middlesex University Press, November 2008, pp.155-171. ISBN-10: 1904750273.

Whyton, T., ‘Four for Trane: Jazz and the Disembodied Voice’, Jazz Perspectives (October            2007) - Vol.1 No 2, pp.115-132. ISSN: 1749-4060.

Whyton, T., ‘Birth of the School: discursive methodologies in jazz education’, Music EducationResearch (March 2006) - Vol.8 No.1, pp.65-81. ISSN: 1461-3808.

Whyton, T., ‘Telling Tales: witnessing and the jazz anecdote’, the source: challenging jazz criticism (vol. 1, pp.115-131) and Jazz Research Journal [Online], Volume 1 Number 1(Equinox Publishing, 1 March 2004) ISSN: 1753-8637.

Collaborative publications

Goh, F with Whyton, T., ‘Strength in Numbers: A Study of Europe Jazz Network’ (2011), (http://www.europejazz.net/strength_in_numbers.htm)

Papageorgi, I., Haddon, E., Creech, A., Morton, F., De Bezenac, C., Himonides, E., Potter, J., Duffy, C., Whyton, T. and Welch, G. (in press) 'Institutional culture and learning I: Perceptions of the learning environment and Musicians' Attitudes to Learning', Music Education Research 12(2), 151-178.

Papageorgi, I., Creech, A., Duffy, C., Potter, J., Whyton, T., Morton, F., Haddon, L., de Bezenac, C., Himonides, E., & Welch, G. F. (in press). Perceptions and predictions of expertise in advanced musical learners. Psychology of Music Vol. 38, No. 1, 31-66 (2010)

Papageorgi, I., Haddon, E., Creech, A., Morton, F., De Bezenac, C., Himonides, E., Potter, J., Duffy, C., Whyton, T. and Welch, G. (in press) 'Institutional Culture and Learning II: Inter-relationships between Perceptions of the Learning Environment and Undergraduate Musicians Attitudes to Performance', Music Education Research 12(4), 1-10.

Creech, A., Papageorgi, I., Duffy, C., Morton, F., Haddon, E., Potter, J, de Bézenac, C., Whyton, T., Himonides, E., & Welch, G.F. (in press). From music student to professional: The process of transition. British Journal of Music Education, 25 (October 2008), 315-331. ISSN: 0265-0517.

Welch, G. F., Papageorgi, I., Haddon, E., Creech, A., Morton, F., de Bézenac, C., Duffy, C., Potter, J., Whyton, T., & Himonides, E. (2008[a]). Musical genre and gender as factors in Higher   Education learning in music. Research Papers in Education, 23(2), 203-217.

Creech, A., Papageorgi, I., Duffy, C., Morton, F., Haddon, L., Potter, J., de Bezenac, C., Whyton, T., Himonides, E., & Welch, G. F. (2008). Investigating musical performance: Commonality and diversity amongst classical and non-classical musicians. Music Education Research, 10(2), 215-234. ISSN: 1461-3808.