About

John Sweenie is a Canadian saxophonist, composer, educator, and researcher whose work integrates performance, composition, and analytical study of jazz improvisation. His practice is rooted in the bebop lineage and Black American Improvised Music, with a particular focus on how improvised musical language is structured, internalized, and transmitted.

As a performer, Sweenie has worked with artists including Jean-Michel Pilc, Tommy Banks, P.J. Perry, Kevin Dean, Christine Jensen, and Mallory Chipman. He performs primarily in small-group settings while maintaining active involvement in larger ensemble contexts.

As a composer, Sweenie has written for ensembles ranging from duo to jazz orchestra. His works have been performed by professional and educational ensembles, including the YSJO in Edmonton. His compositional output is closely tied to his analytical work, often drawing directly from research-derived materials rather than stylistic pastiche. His creative projects have been supported by grants from the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Sweenie’s debut studio-length recording presents original compositions developed in parallel with his doctoral research. The music is derived from large-scale analytical study of bebop improvisation, translating corpus-based findings—such as phrase segmentation, intervallic behavior, and syntactic patterning—into compositional structures for a modern jazz ensemble. The record functions both as a creative statement and as an applied extension of his research, foregrounding process without subordinating musical urgency.

He is the recipient of both SSHRC CGS-M and SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship awards and is currently a doctoral candidate at McGill University. His research applies corpus-linguistics methodologies to jazz improvisation, using computational tools to examine phrase structure, segmentation rules, and emergent syntactic behavior in bebop-era solos, with particular emphasis on Charlie Parker and related stylistic lineages.

As an educator, Sweenie has taught students from the primary level through post-secondary education, including lecturing at McGill University. His teaching integrates historical context, analytical clarity, and performance-based inquiry, emphasizing the development of individual artistic language informed by rigorous engagement with tradition.

Across performance, composition, research, and teaching, John Sweenie’s work is unified by a sustained investigation into how improvised musical language operates—artistically, structurally, and historically—and how that understanding can inform contemporary creative practiceWrite your text here...