Professor of Jazz and Improvised Music

Dr Walter van de Leur is the first Professor of Jazz and Improvised Music in the Netherlands at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on behalf of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA). He co-founded the CvA’s Master’s research programme, serves as research coordinator and teaches various jazz historiography electives.

Van de Leur’s work focuses on jazz reception history and historiography and is deeply involved with interdisciplinary and practice-based research.

He is an internationally recognized expert on the music of Duke Ellington and his collaborator Billy Strayhorn. He is the author of Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn (Oxford UP 2002; winner of the Irving Lowens Book Award for Distinguished Scholarship in American Music). He is the author of a monograph titled Jazz and Death: Rituals and Representations (Routledge 2023) and the founding editor of the forthcoming five-volume Oxford History of Jazz in Europe.

His research has yielded contributions to several other volumes, such as Politics and Cultures of Liberation (Brill), Singing Death: Reflections on Music and Mortality (Routledge), The Routledge Companion to New Jazz Studies, Current Research in Jazz, and the International Journal of Heritage Studies, next to work for various non-academic publications.

He contributed works on Strayhorn and Ellington to The Duke Ellington Studies Anthology (Cambridge UP), Musicians and Their Audiences (Ashgate), Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life (Agate), The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington, The Grove Dictionary of American Music (Oxford UP), The International Dictionary of Black Composers (U. of Chicago Press), and the Musical Quarterly. As a member of the editorial board of Jazz Perspectives, he guest-edited the Special Issue on Duke Ellington. 

Van de Leur has led the Dutch work packages for two European-funded research projects: Rhythm Changes: Jazz and National Identity and CHIME (Cultural Heritage and Improvised Music in European Festivals). He is a co-applicant and team member for A New Generation of Music Professionals, an education research project (Comenius Leadership Fellow Grant) funded by The Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO). The project seeks to develop a cross-institutional BA-MA program (Academy for Musicology and Musicianship Amsterdam/Utrecht; AMMA/AMMU) involving CvA, UvA, Utrecht University, and the Utrecht Conservatory (HKU).

He has directed four academic jazz conferences for Rhythm Changes (the largest in the field), the CHIME Music, Festivals, Heritage Conference in Siena (Italy), and co-led the 22nd International Duke Ellington Conference in Amsterdam.

Van de Leur was the researcher and artistic co-director for six ground-breaking recording projects that evolved around newly discovered jazz works of Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, Gil Evans, and others (issued by Challenge Records).

Publications

Books

• The [Oxford] History of Jazz in Europe. Founding editor. Five-Volume Edited Set: Vol. 1, Arrival and Early Reception, 1918–40; Vol. 2, The Second World War, 1940–45; Vol. 3, Conflicting Ideologies and Agendas, 1945–65; Vol. 4, New European Idioms, 1965–90; Vol. 5, Globalization and Fusions, 1990–2010 (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
• Jazz and Death: Reception, Rituals, and Representations. Transnational Studies in Jazz Series (New York: Routledge, 2023).
• NL Real Book, Vol. 1. Founding editor. (Amsterdam: Music Centre Netherlands, 2011).
• Jazz behind the dikes: Vijfentachtig jaar schrijven over jazz in Nederland. Oratiereeks (Amsterdam University Press, 2009).
• Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn . New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Winner of the  2003 Irving Lowens Book Award (Society of American Music) and the  2003 Award for Best Research in Recorded Jazz Music (Association of Recorded Sound Collections).

Chapters in Books

• “Swan Songs: Jazz, Death and Famous Last Concerts.” Book chapter, in The Routledge Companion to New Jazz Studies, edited by Tony Whyton, Nick Gebhardt, and Nicole Rustin, 55–64 (London: Routledge, 2018).
• “The Reception and Development of Jazz in the Netherlands (1945–1970s).” Book chapter, in Politics and Cultures of Liberation: Media, Memory, and Projections of Democracy, edited by Hans Bak, Frank Mehring, and Mathilde Roza, 177–91. Radboud Studies in Humanities, vol. 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
• “Swinging in Heaven, Boppin’ in Hell: Jazz and Death.” Book chapter, in Singing Death: Reflections on Music and Mortality, edited by Helen Dell and Helen Hickey, 76–89 (London: Routledge, 2017).
• “‘People Wrap Their Lunches in Them’: Duke Ellington and His Written Music Manuscripts.” Book chapter, in Duke Ellington Studies Anthology, edited by John Howland, 157–76 (New York: Cambridge UP, 2017).
• “‘Moved to the Point Where She Could No Longer Contain Herself’: Ellington and Audience Interaction at the Newport Jazz Festival.” Invited Afterword, in Musicians and their Audiences: Performance, Speech and Mediation, edited by Ioannis Tsioulakis and Elina Hytönen-Ng, 195–8 (Burlington VT: Ashgate Press, 2016).
• “Take the ‘A’ Train” and 37 vignettes on Billy Strayhorn compositions, in Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life, edited by Alyce Claerbout and David Schlesinger (Chicago: Agate Publishing, 2015).
• “‘Seldom Seen, But Always Heard’: Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington.” Book chapter, in The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington, edited by Ed Green, 186–96 (New York: Cambridge UP, 2014).
• “Evans, Gil”; “Raeburn, Boyd”; “Strayhorn, William Thomas ‘Billy’”; “Thornhill, Claude.” In The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd Edition, edited by Charles Hiroshi Garrett (New York: Oxford UP, 2013).
• "Scores of Scores: Einige Anmerkungen zu Manuskripten der Billy Strayhorn und Duke Ellington Sammlungen in den USA."In Wolfram Knauer (ed.), Duke Ellington und die Folgen, Darmstadt: Jazz-Institut Darmstadt and Wolke Verlag, 2000.
• "Billy Strayhorn." In The International Dictionary of Black Composers , Vol. 2. Chicago: Columbia College of Chicago Press, 1999.

Articles

• “‘Building on the Power of the Past’: Discourses Surrounding the North Sea Jazz and Punda Jazz Festivals in Curaçao.” (With Bethanie Aggett). International Journal of Heritage Studies Special Issue: Cultural Heritage & Improvised Music in European Festivals (2019).
• “CHIME Travelling Exhibition: A History of Dutch Jazz Festivals in Thirty-Some Objects.” Exhibition Guide. With Bethany Aggett and Loes Rusch. (Amsterdam: CHIME, 2017)
• “Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival: Marketing and Branding Jazz Heritage.” (With Bethanie Aggett). In Festivals as Integrative Sites: Valuing Tangible and Intangible Heritage for Sustainable Development, edited by Beth Perry, Laura Ager, and Rike Sitas, 12–13 (University of Sheffield, 2016).
• “Swan Songs: Jazz, Death, and Famous Last Concerts.” Conference Proceedings, in Jazz Cosmopolitanism, edited by Hui Yu, 75–84 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2016). 
• “Your Music Has Flung the Story of ‘Hot Harlem’ to the Four Corners of the Earth!: Race and Narrative in Black, Brown and Beige.” (With Prof. Lisa Barg, McGill University). Musical Quarterly. (Fall-Winter 2013) 96 (3-4): 426-458.
• “Jazzophielen versus Muziekkwakzalvers: De Jazzwereld 1931-1940.” Jazz Bulletin 89 (Dec. 2013): 44-51. (Revised reprint from Liber Plurium Vocum voor Rokus de Groot, 2012. In Dutch).
• “Clichémachines versus Improvisatoren: Jazzwereld 1967-1973." Jazz Bulletin 82 ( March 2012; article is in Dutch).
• “‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Muziekkwakzalvers’: De Jazzwereld 1931-1940.” Liber Plurium Vocum voor Rokus de Groot. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 128-38. (In Dutch.) Originally appeared as “‘Pure Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanry’: A History of De Jazzwereld Magazine, 1931-1940.” Dan Morgenstern Festschrift, 2012.
• “‘Pure Jazz' and 'Charlatanry': A History of De Jazzwereld Magazine, 1931-1940." Dan Morgenstern Commemorative Festschrift. Current Research in Jazz (www.crj-online.org), Vol. 4. (2012).
• Introduction as Guest Editor to Jazz Perspectives Thematic Issue on Duke Ellington. Jazz Perspectives 6:1-2, 1-3 (2012).
• “Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, The River and Chief Natoma." DEMS Bulletin, Vol. 32 (August-November 2010) www.depanorama.net/dems.
• “A Jungle at Duke's Place? Titles, Credits, and the Secondary Literature." Blue Light (Winter 2003): 14-15.
•  “The 'American Impressionists' and the 'Birth of the Cool'." Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie (February 2001): 18-26.
• “A Warehouse Full of Paper: The Duke Ellington Collection." Jazz-Nu (March 1995): 14-15.

Invited reviews

•  "Swingende geschiedschrijving: Mythen van de jazzgeschiedenis ontzenuwd." Academische Boekengids (Amsterdam University Press, May 2010): 21-23.
•  "The Oxford Companion to Jaz z." Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie (February 2003): 83-85.
• "Annual Review of Jazz Studies." Jazz Research News (February 2001): 56-57.