Marc T. Gaspard Bolin

Performer/Scholar

musician, jazz scholar, photographer, filmmaker

Lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles:

Jazz in American Culture (Dept. of Ethnomusicology) and

Jazz and the Political Imagination (Dept. of African American Studies)

Adjunct Professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Tuba/Euphonium Studio, Ethnomusicology: History, Theory, and Methods, and World of Music (Music Department)

about Marc

Performer

Studio recordings, soundtrack recordings, live concerts, television appearances, radio jockeying and on-air guesting, and more…

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Arranger

Commissions for three-part horn section, big band, wind ensemble, and orchestral formats in a variety of styles, from "pop" to rock, to R&B, to salsa, and jazz…

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SCHOLAR

My work as an ethnomusicologist is grounded in my  own jazz practice and deeply informed by my collaborators. I am a Lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, where I teach Jazz in American Culture (50A+B), Women in Jazz, and Introduction to Ethnomusicology.

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Duke Ellington’s

Queenie Pie 

In the early fall of 2007, Marc received a commission to complete Duke Ellington's unfinished opera Queenie Pie by Oakland Opera Theater. Marc’s influence continues today in this much loved production.

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highlights

EDUCATION


Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, UCLA

M.A. in Ethnomusicology, UCLA

M.M. in Tuba Performance, UCLA

B.M. in Tuba and Trombone Performance, UCLA


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Teaching Postitions


Continuing Lecturer (2022 - present) Department of Ethnomusicology, UCLA Jazz in American Culture, Women in Jazz, Introduction to Ethnomusicology 101

Lecturer (2022 - present) Department of African American Studies, UCLA Jazz in the Political Imagination

Adjunct Professor (2024 - ongoing) California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Tuba/Euphonium Studio, Ethnomusicology: History, Theory, and Methods, and World of Music (Music Department)

Adjunct Instructor, Longy School of Music of Bard College, Los Angeles, CA (2021; Spring term) 5-week Social Justice Music Research Project/Ethnomusicology Module Master of Music in Music Education Program

Principal Lecturer, Department of Ethnomusicology, UCLA (2017; Spring term) Ellingtonia

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awards


Claudia Mitchell-Kernan Award

Contributions to Scholarship and Education in the Field of Jazz


Name Included on the SFJAZZ Center's Franklin Street Wall

In Recognition of Contribution to the San Francisco Jazz Community



PRESENTATIONS


"Jazz at the Fringes: Community, Identity, and Placemaking in Venice, CA," 8th Annual Rhythm Changes Conference, Jazz Encounters, Graz, Austria

Pre-concert talk, "Marginalized Mavericks: Minority Composers Redefining Classical Traditions," LA Philharmonic's UPBEAT LIVE! Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall; Ballade in A minor, Op. 33, Samuel Coleridge Taylor; Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein; La Lección Tres, Victor Wooten; Thomas Wilkins, conductor, 2023

"The Congo Square Ideology: Congo Square is, not was" Annual Meeting of the Society for American Music, Minneapolis, MN, 2023

Pre-concert talk, "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in Concert John Williams Spotlight," LA Philharmonic's UPBEAT LIVE! Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor 2023

PRESENTATIONS…continued

Pre-concert talk, "Tchaikovsky and Adès," LA Philharmonic's UPBEAT LIVE! Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall; Elim Chan, conductor; Leila Josefowicz, violin; Los Angeles, CA

Pre-concert talk, "Tchaikovsky & Ellington," LA Philharmonic's UPBEAT LIVE! Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor, 2022 

"The New Orleans Second Line: A Tradition on the Move," seventh Rhythm Changes Conference, Jazz Then & Now, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2022

"Black Mardi Gras Indians: Their History, Musical Influence, and Audio Legacy," Annual Meeting of the Society for American Music, Tucson, AZ, 2022


My Brother’s Keeper (ethnographic film)

Selected for participation at the MAAM Film Festival, National Museum of Anthropology Madrid, Spain, 2021

Selected for screening at ETNOFF 7, Skopje, Macedonia, 2021


“Queenie Pie, Ellington and Colorism”

Panel discussion, CONNECT Series, Lexington Philharmonic Society, 2021


PUBLICATIONS


Continuities at the Center of the Jazz Universe: Echoes and Heirs of Congo Square: Congo Square, Brass Bands, Mardi Gras Indians, and Their Cultural Legacies, manuscript under contract with the University Press of Mississippi.

"Congo Square and the Second Line: Their Relevance to Shifting Narratives about Jazz History." Journal of Jazz Studies, 15 (1), (2024): 39-73. https://doi.org/10.14713/jjs.v15i1.255

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