Summary
Peter Elsdon is a musicologist and jazz musician. His research interests are wide-ranging, and include jazz studies, improvisation, popular music, sound studies, and studies of recorded music. His publications cover a similarly broad area, from work on Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós, to chapters on John Coltrane, theorising improvisation, viewing jazz performance, and music and gesture. He is currently working on a project that examines technologies of listening by using ideas such as mediation, agency, and object-oriented ontology.
In 2013 Oxford University Press published Peter’s book on Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert, a seminal recording which is now seen as one of the cornerstones of the German ECM label’s output. Peter has also spoken about his research on Jarrett at an event in at the National Library in Oslo, as well as on German radio.
In 2010/11, he worked on an AHRC-funded research project on the use of Audiovisual Resources in Jazz History with Björn Heile and Jenny Doctor. This project resulted in a conference, and the collection Watching Jazz, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.
Within the School, Dr Elsdon founded and directs the Jazz Æsthetic, a 12-piece band which specialises in performing contemporary jazz. He is also currently reviews editor of the Jazz Research Journal.