Marc T. Gaspard Bolin is a performer/scholar with a nearly three-decade-long career as a professional musician, arranger, and educator. As a performer and arranger, Marc has worked with some of the music industry’s most exceptional entertainers, including Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Kamasi Washington, Kanye West, Black Eyed Peas, John Legend, Evanescence, Florence & The Machine, Aloe Blacc, Big Sean, and Deltron 3030, among others. His arranging work includes commissions for diverse ensembles, notably a 15-minute suite from Duke Ellington’s unfinished opera Queenie Pie for the Lexington Philharmonic Society. Marc originally completed Queenie Pie in 2008 for the Oakland Opera Theater. The work has been performed by prestigious opera programs nationwide, including the Butler School of Music Opera Program at the University of Texas, Austin (2009), the Long Beach Opera (2014), and the Chicago Opera Theater (2014).
Marc’s recent publication, “Congo Square and the Second Line: Their Relevance to Shifting Narratives about Jazz History” (Journal of Jazz Studies; https://doi.org/10.14713/jjs.v15i1.255), explores overlooked aspects of New Orleans’ jazz heritage. Building on this research, he is currently working on a book manuscript, Continuities at the Center of the Jazz Universe, under contract with the University Press of Mississippi. This project aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of jazz history by amplifying marginalized narratives and examining often-overlooked facets of New Orleans’ rich musical traditions.
Marc joined the speaking faculty at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s UPBEAT LIVE Series in 2022. Since then, he has presented several pre-concert talks, including “Tchaikovsky & Ellington” and “Marginalized Mavericks: Minority Composers Redefining Classical Traditions.” He has also facilitated Q&A sessions with notable artists such as Elim Chan, Leila Josefowicz, Clarice Assad, and Victor Wooten.
Marc serves as Secretary for Silver Swan Ragtime Innovations, Inc., a Board member of the Louisiana Cultural Foundation of California, and Archivist for the AZZ-IS Venice Jazz/Not-Jazz Festival in Venice, CA, reflecting his ongoing engagement with diverse musical traditions. He is also a proud Eastman Winds, Denis Wick, and HornFX Recording and Performing artist.
Research interests: Jazz history and heritage; New Orleans brass band tradition; marginalized narratives in jazz; jazz and social justice; sensory ethnography; documentary filmmaking
Education: Ph.D. and M.A., Ethnomusicology, University of California, Los Angeles; M.M., Tuba Performance, UCLA; B.M., Tuba and Trombone Performance, UCLA
