Wesleyan portrait of Eric  Charry

Eric Charry

Professor of Music

Music Studios, 201
860-685-2579

echarry@wesleyan.edu

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BMU New England Conservatory of Mu
MFA Princeton University
MMU New England Conservatory of Mu
PHD Princeton University

Eric Charry

Charry's work, based in the discipline of ethnomusicology, ranges from the music of West African griots to the globalization of hip hop; from the emergence of an avant garde in jazz in the 1950s and 60s to the music cultures of downtown New York City in the same era. He was the project director for the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Ethnomusicology and Global Culture, held on Wesleyan's campus in 2011. 

Charry has carried out extended research in India, Mali, Senegal, Guinea, The Gambia, and Trinidad. A guitarist since childhood, he has also studied the sitar (in India), kora, bala, and jembe (in West Africa), and steel pan (in Trinidad). He has presented his work on African music, jazz, and improvisation widely and has published extensively, including dictionary and encyclopedia entries, journal articles, and books (Mande Music, 2000; Hip Hop Africa, 2012; A New and Concise History of Rock and R&B, 2020). He is working on two other books: Four Cultural Vanguards: Music and Downtown New York; and The Emergence of an Avant Garde in Jazz. He is currently working on the entry "Global Hip Hop" for the Oxford Handbook of Global Popular Music.

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Academic Affiliations

Office Hours

Tuesdays 3:00pm-4:00pm, and by appointment

Courses

Spring 2024
MUSC 108 - 01
History of Rock and R&B

MUSC 277 - 01
Jazz Avant-Gardes