Matt Parker

Final year PhD scholar at the University of Birmingham reading British Progressive Jazz

About Me

I've been a musician for over three decades and turned professional at the age of 17. Alongside performance I have also continuously taught, studied, or both, obtaining the following qualifications over the years:

Diploma in Percussion (Musicians Institute) Diploma H.E in Jazz (Birmingham Conservatoire) Ba Hons First Class in Music (Coventry University) PhD in Musicology (University of Birmingham completes September 2019)

An obsessive collector and archiver of jazz, I am particularly passionate about the era of British Progressive Jazz since 1960 which forms the basis of the thesis for my current musicology PhD scholarship at the University of Birmingham. An incredibly inventive and individual strand of jazz sadly overlooked by many jazz fans, and a genre which began arguably with Joe Harriott's 'Free Form' and 'Abstract' albums and continues to this day with artists such as Martin Archer, Laura Jurd, Galvin Elliott, Binker & Moses, Sarathy Korwar and a vast galaxy of others.

I co-run a Facebook group promoting the genre, both the classic art works and the current and very gifted crop of musicians, with nearly 500 members from across the world. Members include British Progressive jazz artists, fans, collectors, writers, photographers etc and it has proved to be an absolutely invaluable and seemingly inexhaustible font of research data.