Garth Alper is a Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he holds the Ruth Stodghill Girard Professorship.  He teaches in the jazz piano, jazz studies, and music media areas, and he has published articles on the subjects of jazz, popular music, and postmodernism in music.   His article, “How the Flexibility of the Twelve-Bar Blues Has Helped Shape the Jazz Language,” has been published in College Music Symposium and numerous other articles and reviews have been published in Popular Music and Society.  Dr. Alper served as the guest editor of a special “jazz” issue of Popular Music and Society published in October 2006.  He has been a frequent presenter and panel chair at Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conferences.  A recent article, “Towards the Acceptance of a Bachelor of Music Degree in Popular Music Studies” has been accepted for publication in the upcoming volume of College Music Symposium.

Dr. Alper’s second CD, Inroads, released on the Musicians Showcase Recordings label, has been called “a primer for how cool jazz should be performed” by Walter Pierce of the Lafayette Daily Advertiser.  Pierce goes on to say that Inroads “gathers together 10 playful often winking numbers that draw from several jazz traditions while maintaining a consistency characteristic of the best weathered ensembles.”  Alper composed all of the pieces on Inroads and has received the Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society for his work as a jazz composer and pianist.