Ken Prouty
Associate Professor of Musicology and Jazz Studies
Expert in jazz history, American music and popular music, and the nature of jazz community
Get in touchBiography
Ken Prouty is the area chair of musicology at the Michigan State University College of Music.
He's been with MSU since 2007. At Michigan State, Dr. Prouty teaches courses in jazz history, American music, and popular music. His recent research focuses on the nature of jazz community and the culture of jazz pedagogy. He is a frequent presenter at scholarly conferences in the U.S. and Europe, and he has published articles in academic journals such as Critical Studies in Improvisation, Popular Music
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and Society, and Journal of Music History Pedagogy, to name a few.
Education
University of Pittsburgh: Ph.D., Ethnomusicology
University of North Texas: M.M.,
Selected Press
A Brief History Of Jazz Education, Pt. 1
NPR Music | 2012-11-02
The story of "jazz ed" isn't just one of institutional complexes, but of dedicated improvisers finding their ways to them. "The history of jazz and the history of jazz education are the same thing," says Ken Prouty, author of the recent book Knowing Jazz. "'Jazz Education' has been around as long as one jazz musician taught something to another one." Ake and Prouty, music scholars originally trained as jazz musicians, are dedicating much of their research to historicizing jazz education, yet another sign of the phenomenon's complex past...
