Rate My Professor David Ake

Ake's research specializations center on jazz and popular music. He authored the books Jazz Cultures (University of California Press, 2002) and Jazz Matters: Sound, Place, and Time since Bebop (University of California Press, 2010). He co-edited Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries with Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Daniel Goldmark (University of California Press, 2012), Analytical Approaches to World Music with Martin Clayton and Norbert Furlong (Routledge, 2013), and (Ir)Responsible Cyborgs: Essays on Musical Mediations with Tammy L. Kernodle (Routledge, 2023). His articles have appeared in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, American Music, and Jazz Perspectives, with chapters in volumes such as the Cambridge Companion to Jazz. Ake has presented papers at conferences including the American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, and International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and delivered lectures at universities across the United States. In 2024, he received the Phillip Frost Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship. As a performer, Ake is an active jazz pianist and composer, with recordings including Bridges (Posi-Tone, 2017), Flux (Posi-Tone, 2014), and Purpose (Posi-Tone, 2010); he has performed and recorded with artists such as Charlie Haden, Ravi Coltrane, and Ralph Alessi.