I am Director of Research, convenor of the BMus Popular Music programme, and, with Prof. Keith Negus, co-director of the Popular Music Research Unit. My work centres on the history and historiography of jazz and popular music. My most recent book is After Django: Making Jazz in Postwar France (University of Michigan Press, 2015), and an edited anthology, From Soul to Hip Hop , was published in 2014 as part of Routledge’s Library of Essays on Popular Music. My first monograph was Lee Morgan: His Life, Music and Culture (Equinox, 2006). My research articles appear in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association , American Music , Popular Music , Jazz Perspectives , Popular Music and Society , the Journal of the Society for American Music and Popular Music History .
Teaching
Since 2008, I have designed, delivered or team-led the following modules: Popular Music History; Analytical and Contextual Studies; Approaches to Contemporary Music; Music Study Skills (Level 1); What is Jazz? (Level 2); Topics in African American Music; Music/Modernities; Research Essay; Advanced Popular Music Studies (Level 3); Encounters in African American Music; Popular Music and its Critics (Masters).
Areas of supervision
I am currently primary supervisor for three MPhil/PhD students: Jeremiah Spillane, ‘Identity, Improvisation and Influence: The Stylistic Development and Enduring Legacy of Django Reinhardt; Alex de Lacy, ‘Grime Music: Live Performance and the Creative Process’; Fiamma Mozzetta, ‘The Past in Contemporary Popular Music: Historical Meaning-Making in Creative, Institutional and Commercial Sites’. I have had one PhD completion: Jasmin Taylor, ‘Billie Holiday and the Gendered Politics of Jazz Creativity’ (2017). I have examined four PhDs. Since 2008 I have supervised over 20 Masters students’ dissertations.
Publications and research outputs
Book Perchard, Tom ; Graham, Stephen ; Rutherford-Johnson, Tim and Rogers, Holly . 2022. Twentieth-Century Music in the West
Perchard, Tom . 2015. After Django: Making Jazz in Postwar France
Perchard, Tom , ed. 2014. From Soul to Hip Hop (The Library of Essays on Popular Music)
Edited Journal Perchard, Tom and Powers, Devon, eds. 2017. Special Issue: The Critical Imperative
Book Section Perchard, Tom . 2018. The Vocalized Tone
Perchard, Tom . 2014. 'Introduction'
Article Perchard, Tom . 2017. Technology, Listening and Historical Method: Placing Audio in the Post-War British Home
Perchard, Tom . 2017. Growing Old Together: Pop Studies and Music Sociology Today
Perchard, Tom . 2017. Mid-Century Modern Jazz: Music and Design in the Postwar Home
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Powers, Devon and Perchard, Tom . 2017. Introduction: The Critical Imperative
Perchard, Tom . 2015. New Riffs on the Old Mind-Body Blues: “Black Rhythm,” “White Logic,” and Music Theory in the Twenty-First Century
Perchard, Tom . 2013. Doing Musical Fieldwork with James G. Spady
Perchard, Tom . 2013. Eric Drott, Music and the Elusive Revolution: Cultural Politics and Political Culture in France, 1968-1981 (Book Review)
Perchard, Tom . 2012. Hugues Panassié contra Walter Benjamin: Bodies, masses and the iconic jazz recording in mid-century France
Perchard, Tom . 2011. Thelonious Monk meets the French critics: Art and Entertainment, Improvisation, and its Simulacrum
Perchard, Tom . 2011. Tradition, modernity and the supernatural swing: re-reading ‘primitivism’ in Hugues Panassié’s writing on jazz
Perchard, Tom . 2011. Hip hop Samples Jazz: Dynamics of Cultural Memory and Musical Tradition in the African American 1990s
Perchard, Tom . 2009. Robin D. G. Kelley, 'Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original’ (Book Review)
Perchard, Tom . 2007. Writing Jazz Biography: Race, Research and Narrative Representation
Perchard, Tom . 2005. Eithne Quinn, 'Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap’ (Book Review)
Conference or Workshop Item Perchard, Tom . 2018. 'Hearing, Seeing, Talking, Touching: Pop Music Experiences in the Postwar British Home
Perchard, Tom . 2018. 'Towards a History of Pop Music in the 20th-Century Home
Perchard, Tom . 2017. 'Reimagining Popular Music History
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Perchard, Tom . 2017. 'Historiography and Popular Music
Perchard, Tom . 2017. 'Experiments in Critical Music Writing
Perchard, Tom . 2017. 'What Next for the History of Popular Music?
Perchard, Tom . 2016. 'Towards a History of Pop Music in the British Home
Perchard, Tom . 2016. 'Utopia in the Living Room
Perchard, Tom . 2016. 'The Look of Listening: Audio Technology and the British Home, 1955-70
Perchard, Thomas . 2015. 'Roundtable contributor
Perchard, Tom . 2014. 'Panel respondent, Voice, Memory, Song symposium, University of Oxford. November 2014.
Perchard, Tom . 2014. '‘New Riffs on the Old Mind-Body Blues: “Black Rhythm,” “White Logic” and Music Theory in the 21st-Century’.
Perchard, Tom . 2014. '‘“A Good Jazzman is a Dead Jazzman”: the History, Memory and Materiality of a French Jazz Past’
Perchard, Tom . 2012. 'Going Cold on Cool: Miles Davis and Ascenseur pour l’échafaud’
Perchard, Tom . 2012. '“We must expand the domain of jazz so we never have to leave it”: André Hodeir and the search for a European jazz art
Perchard, Tom . 2012. 'Miles Davis’s Music for Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (1958): Improvisation, Realism and Ideology
Perchard, Tom . 2012. 'Jazz Trumpet and the Semiotics of Vulnerability
Perchard, Tom . 2012. 'Hip Hop Samples Jazz: Dynamics of Cultural Memory and Musical Tradition in the African American 1990s
Perchard, Tom . 2012. 'Monk Meets the French Critics
Perchard, Tom . 2011. 'Ideologies of Improvisation: Miles Davis’ music for Ascenseur pour l’échafaud
Perchard, Tom . 2011. 'Re-reading Primitivism in Hugues Panassié’s Writing on Jazz
Perchard, Tom . 2011. 'Thelonious Monk Meets the French Critics: Art and Entertainment, Improvisation, and its Simulacrum
Perchard, Tom . 2011. 'Hip Hop Samples Jazz: Dynamics of Cultural Memory and Musical Tradition in the African American 1990s
Perchard, Tom . 2011. 'Four Histories of 20th-Century Music.
Perchard, Tom . 2009. 'Hugues Panassié and Readings of Primitivism in Early French Jazz Criticism
Perchard, Tom . 2009. 'Thelonious Monk Meets the French Critics: Improvisation and its Simulacra
Broadcast Perchard, Tom . 2017. Historical consultant, Rock ‘n’ Roll Guns for Hire: The Story of the Sideman. BBC Films
Perchard, Tom . 2016. Programme guest, Jazz Now. BBC Radio 3
Perchard, Tom . 2016. Historical consultant, Things Called Jazz that are Not Jazz. BBC Radio 4.
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Perchard, Tom . 2011. Programme guest, BBC Radio 3, 'Jazz Library: Barney Wilen'
Perchard, Tom . 2010. Programme guest, BBC Radio 3, 'Jazz Library: Clifford Brown'
Perchard, Tom . 2009. Programme guest, BBC Radio 3, 'Jazz Library: Booker Little'
Perchard, Tom . 2008. Programme guest, BBC Radio 3, 'Jazz Library: Lee Morgan'
Perchard, Tom . 2006. Writer and presenter, Resonance FM series, 'Memoir City'
Professional Activity Perchard, Tom . Advisory Council member, Institute of Musical Research
Perchard, Tom . Editorial Board member, 'Jazz Research Journal'
Perchard, Tom . Regular referee, 'Popular Music'
Project Perchard, Tom . 2020-2023 Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship (£145,059): Popular Music in the British Home, 1945-90: Technology, Experience and Daily Life
Perchard, Tom . January-October AHRC Early Career Fellowship (£64,800). Jazz in France, 1934-75: Contesting the Politics of Nation, Art and World through Music
Perchard, Tom . 2005. AHRB/C PhD award (2002-5)
Research Interests
My research is focussed on the cultural history of jazz and popular music in the (long) 20th -century. I welcome enquiries from potential research students.
