Perchard, Tom 1976- (Thomas Andrew Perchard)

PERSONAL:

Born 1976, in Canterbury, England. Education: Goldsmiths College, University of London, B.Mus., 2000, M.Mus, 2002, Ph.D., 2005.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Westminster, 309 Regent St., London W1B 2UW, England. E-mail—T.Perchard@westminster.ac.uk; postmaster@tomperchard.com.

CAREER:

Writer, broadcaster, reviewer, and educator. University of Westminster, London, England, visiting lecturer, 2004-06, senior lecturer in music sociology, 2006—. Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, visiting lecturer, 2004-06. Presenter at conferences and meetings.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Jarvis PLC Award, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2000; Ph.D. scholarship, Arts and Humanities Research Board, England, 2002-05.

WRITINGS:

Lee Morgan: His Life, Music, and Culture, Equinox Publishing (Oakville, CT), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Edexcel GCSE Anthology of Music, Peters Edition (London, England), 2002; and AQA GCSE Anthology, Peters Edition (London, England), 2003. Contributor to periodicals, including the Wire, Cadence, Coda, and Contemporary Music News.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tom Perchard is a writer, broadcaster, and educator. A senior lecturer in music sociology at the University of Westminster, Perchard is interested in the history of music, particularly the history and forgotten personalities associated with jazz, bop, and related genres. A prolific reviewer, he has published more than one hundred reviews on jazz, hip hop, classical, and other musical genres since 2001, according to a biographer on the Tom Perchard Home Page. The biographer also reported that Perchard's academic interests include "music and the city; jazz and twentieth-century African-American music; music and ethnicity; methods and politics of ethnography and history writing; and quotation and intertextuality in music." As an educator, he teaches courses in music and identity, musical genres, and musical tradition an analysis, stated a biographer on the University of Westminster Web site.

Lee Morgan: His Life, Music, and Culture combines several of Perchard's academic research interests, reported the University of Westminster Web site biographer, including "urban and cultural history, oral history/ethnography, and close readings of musical performance." Perchard offers a detailed personal and professional biography of the mercurial but prodigiously talented Morgan, whose musical genius was apparent at a young age but was snuffed out by violence in his early thirties. Other jazz luminaries have achieved greater fame throughout the years, but "Perchard makes clear that the fact Morgan's name isn't as widespread as others does not undercut his skills or contributions," remarked Blogcritics.org reviewer Tim Gebhart.

Perchard begins with Morgan's teenage years, when his talent as a musical phenomenon began to emerge. Though still in high school, Morgan had the talent and ability to organize his own ensembles and sit in on jam sessions with noted musicians. He played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, occupied a spot in Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band, and soon became a bandleader himself. Before age twenty, he had recorded six albums under his own name and had been featured on recordings by other important musicians. While Morgan's rise to fame was rapid, his fall was just as quick, as drug addiction devastated his life and talent. His life ended violently in February, 1972, Gebhart reported, when he was gunned down by his longtime girlfriend at a club in New York City.

"Through a wealth of research and incisive anecdote from his band members and close associates, Morgan emerges as an intriguing, multi-layered figure, a mercurial talent whose material success did not preclude social consciousness or activism," commented reviewer Kevin Le Gendre in the London Independent. Le Gendre concluded: "This illuminating biography reminds us that the prematurely departed Lee Morgan also made a significant contribution to ‘America's most revolutionary art form’ in ways both musical and non-musical."