Research in Music Series: A Talk by Marc Hannaford

Research in Music Series: A Talk by Marc Hannaford, University of Michigan

“Roland Wiggins’s Legacy in Theory and Teaching, or How to Be Your Own Music Theorist”

Abstract: Roland Arlington Wiggins (1932–2019) was a prodigious theorist and pedagogue. His influence on jazz and improvised music in the second half of the twentieth century is immense, yet he remains largely unknown by many contemporary jazz musicians and music theorists. Barry Harris, the legendary jazz pianist, pedagogue, and theorist from Detroit, called Wiggins “the greatest theorist we got in this country,” and other musicians such as Yusef Lateef, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Quincy Jones, and Dizzy Gillespie knew Wiggins as the person to call to discuss music theory.

This talk explores Wiggins’s original logic-based meta-theory, pedagogical philosophies and practices, and work in institutional and communal settings. I draw on archival documents at the Library of Congress, conversations with Wiggins’s family and former students, student notes from his time teaching in the Five College Consortium, and extant video and audio documentation. This examination suggests why Wiggins was such a highly regarded music theorist, pointing to forms of music theory beyond the academy and grounded in Black American music. As such, it revises our understanding of American music theory to delineate a broader set of actors, concerns, and communities than is usually included in academic settings.

Marc Hannaford is a music theorist whose interests lie at the intersection of jazz and improvisation, identity (especially race, gender, and disability), and performance. The Society for Music Theory awarded him an Emerging Scholar Award for his article “Fugitive Music Theory and George Russell’s Theory of Tonality” in 2023. He also received the University of Michigan’s highest award for early- and mid-career scholars, the Henry Russel Award in 2025. His current book project examines a genealogy of music theory developed by African American musicians in the twentieth century.

This event is sponsored by the Five College Lecture Fund, the UMass Amherst MSP Research Support Fund, and the Mount Holyoke Department of Music.