Guthrie Ramsey will present a lecture titled “The Amazing Bud Powell: His Tests and Triumphs.” The presentation will comprise a reading from Guthrie's new book on Bud Powell followed by a discussion of jazz, Afromodernism and mental health, topics linked to the life and career of Bud Powell.

Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. A widely published writer, he is the author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (University of California Press, 2003). It was named outstanding book of the year by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. He has recently released The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History and the Challenge of Bebop (2013). His next two books, a survey titled Twist and Shout: African American Music in Time, Place and Contexts, (a historical survey from slavery to the present) and Who Hears Here? Drastic Interpretations on Black Music, History and Society, a mid-career collection of essays are both forthcoming from the University of California Press. He was recipient of the Lowens Award from the Society for American Music for best article on an American music topic in 2001.

Ramsey received his doctorate in musicology from the University of Michigan and taught at Tufts University before joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1998. He was a Thurgood Marshall Dissertation Fellow at Dartmouth College, a DuBois Institute Fellow at Harvard University, and has held visiting professorships at Princeton University and Harvard University. He is a pianist, composer and arranger for his Philadelphia-based band, Dr. Guy’s MusiQology. In 2007 the group released a CD titled Y the Q? and in 2012 he released The Colored Waiting Room, a recording of original music blending jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, neo-soul, and classical.

Co-sponsored by Center on Race and Social Problems, Cultural Studies, Department of History, Humanities Center