Melvin L. Butler is an ethnomusicologist with broad interests in music and religion of the African diaspora. Much of his work centers on the cultural politics of musical style and on the creative strategies through which spiritually charged music making is embedded in processes of social boundary crossing in the Caribbean. These interests fuel his concern with ethnographic representation and the ways in which scholars negotiate their identities within fields of supernatural encounter. He is presently completing two book manuscripts. Claiming Haiti: Music, Christianity, and the Politics of Transcendence (under contract, Oxford University Press) focuses on a continuum of Protestant Christian practice in Haiti and the discourses of cultural authenticity, nationalism, and divine favor that inflect congregational worship. Goodbye World: Music, Flow, and Pentecostal Identity in Jamaica (under review) examines the musical and theological connections between Jamaican and African American forms of ritual practice. Butler was awarded a fellowship at Yale's Institute of Sacred Music in 2012-13, where he also served as a visiting assistant professor. His other awards include a dissertation fellowship at Dartmouth College (2004-05), a Fulbright IIE field research grant (2002), and a Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship (1999). From 2008 to 2010, he was secretary of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (U.S. Branch), and from 2010 to 2013 he served a three-year term as an elected member of the Haitian Studies Association's Board of Directors. As a saxophonist, he received a 2014 Grammy nomination (Best Jazz Instrumental Album) for his work on Landmarks (Blue Note) with Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band. He is featured with this celebrated ensemble on three additional recordings, Brian Blade Fellowship (Blue Note, 1998), Perceptual (Blue Note, 2000), and Season of Changes (Verve, 2008). Since the 1990s, he has worked with numerous jazz artists, including Donald Byrd, Betty Carter, Joey DeFrancesco, Eric Essix, Christian McBride, Jimmy McGriff, and Reuben Wilson. He has also toured internationally with renowned Haitian konpa group, Tabou Combo.