Jeffrey Magee teaches and writes about music in the United States, especially jazz, musical theater, and popular song. His interests include a variety of African-American traditions, issues of Jewish-American musical identity, and black-Jewish intersections. He is the author of The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz (Oxford, 2005), which won the Irving Lowens Award for Best Book in American Music from the Society for American Music, as well as an award for excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. He is now writing a book about Irving Berlin, which has been supported as a We the People Project of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Professor Magee has published articles in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, American Music, Black Music Research Journal, Current Musicology, and Musical Quarterly, and a chapter, Ragtime and Early Jazz, in The Cambridge History of American Music.

Before joining the Illinois faculty, he taught at Indiana University (1997-2006), and served as executive editor of the score series Music of the United States of America (1993-97). He has been editorial board member for American Music, Journal of Musicology, Jazz Perspectives, and the Center for Black Music Research, and is co-editor of the book series Profiles in Popular Music for Indiana University Press. 

Dr. Magee is currently the Interim Director of the University of Illinois School of Music, as well as Professor of Music and Theatre.