Nazir Jairazbhoy was born in England of Indian parents and grew up in India. He was appointed lecturer in Indian music in 1962 by the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In 1969 he was appointed associate professor of Asian Studies at the University of Windsor in Ontario, and professor of music at UCLA in 1975. He has taken an active part in American and international scholarly societies, and has served as president of the Society for Ethnomusicology and as the first chair of the new Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology at UCLA.

He has numerous publications to his credit, including The Rags of North Indian Music: Their Structure and Evolution and Hi-Tech Shiva and Other Apocryphal Stories: An Academic Allegory. He has also produced numerous audio and video documents, which include A Musical Journey through India, 1963-1964 and, in collaboration with Dr. Amy Catlin, Bake Restudy in India: 1938-1984, which received an award from the Society for Visual Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, and Retooling a Tradition: A Rajasthani Puppet Takes Umbrage at his Stringholders, a fictive documentary.

Professor Jairazbhoy has taught numerous courses in ethnomusicology, including field and laboratory methods, transcription and organology, as well as courses on the folk and classical music of India. He served as director of Indian music performance in the department until his retirement in 1994.

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