John Murphy, an ethnomusicologist and saxophonist, joined the UNT Jazz Studies faculty in 2001. He has published articles on jazz improvisation, Brazilian traditional and popular music, Cuban music in New York, and college teaching. He spent the 2000-2001 academic year in Recife, Brazil on a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, doing research for a book in progress on Brazilian popular music and globalization, studying the Northeast Brazilian button accordion style, and producing two video projects. Other current projects include an article on the music of Sam Rivers and a textbook on Brazilian music. He performs often on tenor saxophone.
While a student at the University of North Texas, Murphy earned two degrees (B.M., jazz studies performance; M.M., music theory), played in the One O'Clock Lab Band (1984-85), and free-lanced in Dallas-Ft. Worth. He then earned two degrees at Columbia University (M.A., Ph.D., ethnomusicology), played Latin music around New York, and held a Fulbright Fellowship in 1990-91 for research on Brazilian traditional music.
Murphy teaches jazz history, jazz styles & analysis, jazz aural fundamentals, and directs the UNT Jazz Repertory Orchestra; he collaborates with the ethnomusicology area, and taught at the UNT Small Group Jazz Workshop in 2001 and 2002. He served the Society for Ethnomusicology as web editor from 1997 to 2002, and taught previously at Western Illinois University.
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