Marc Bolin

Marc T. Gaspard is a performer-scholar with nearly three decades of experience as a professional musician, arranger, and educator. He is a Lecturer at both the University of California, Los Angeles, and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. At UCLA, he teaches Jazz in American Culture in the Department of Ethnomusicology and Jazz and the Political Imagination in the Department of African American Studies. At CPP, he teaches Tuba/Euphonium Studio, Ethnomusicology: History, Theory, and Methods, and World of Music in the Department of Music.

His research examines continuities in African American musical culture from Congo Square to contemporary brass band traditions, with a focus on New Orleans and its diasporic echoes in Los Angeles. His forthcoming book, Continuities at the Center of the Jazz Universe (University Press of Mississippi), and the co-authored two-volume textbook Jazz Cultures in Motion, Vols. 1+2 (Kendall Hunt, 2025–2026) reflects his commitment to inclusive and globally oriented jazz education. His ethnographic films My Brother’s Keeper and Can’t Take Our Spirit document second line traditions and community resilience through visual storytelling.

As a performer and arranger, Bolin has collaborated with Kamasi Washington, Carla Bley, Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, John Legend, Big Sean, and Kanye West. His realization of Duke Ellington’s unfinished opera Queenie Pie, commissioned by the Lexington Philharmonic, has been staged by opera companies nationwide. A featured speaker for the LA Philharmonic’s UPBEAT LIVE series, he also directs the St. Bernard Marching Band and co-leads the Hollywood High Steppers, mentoring intergenerational ensembles that connect classrooms to communities and sustain cultural memory.