Living Space : John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Free Jazz, from Analog to Digital
(Wesleyan University Press, 2024)
Click HERE for link to publisher's page
"A major and singular contribution to the literature on jazz from one of the foremost authorities of American music in the world. Because of the longevity, breadth, and unmatched impact of his scholarship on the academy and beyond, Veal's insights are always astonishing and illuminating. The layers of his expertise unfold in this book through an explosion of carefully argued original points and observations that will broaden the interdisciplinary questions we ask of jazz music and its figures."
—Guthrie Ramsey, author of Who Hears Here? On Black Music Pasts and Present
"Equal parts musical analysis, history lesson, and extended parable, Michael E. Veal's Living Space is a sublime rendering of the existential stakes around these epic but largely misrendered narratives of black aesthetic formulation. A profound decoding and subtly paradigm shifting rearticulation, Veal spins extrapolations as potent as the music itself."
—Arthur Jafa, award-winning American cinematographer
DUB: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae
(Wesleyan University Press, 2007)
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“This extraordinary book, with its rich interpretation of the aesthetics and social significance of dub, constitutes a dramatically original contribution to the study of Jamaican popular music, and should be a landmark in popular music studies as a whole.”
—Peter Manuel, professor of ethnomusicology, John Jay College and CUNY Graduate Center
“Veal’s wise volume has rescued Reggae music at last from the tentacles of exoticism. This is a glorious affirmation of dub’s rebel, Creole spirit.”
—Paul Gilroy, Anthony Giddens professor of social theory, London School of Economics
Fela: The Life & Times of an African Musical Icon
(Temple University Press, 2000)
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"Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon is both timely and bold.... [It] has the potential of becoming a classic of African biography. It is written in an accessible style, rich in local color and musically informed.... Veal's study is not the first book written of Fela. But it is by far the best."
—Veit Erlman, Chair of Music History in the School of Music, University of Texas, Austin
TONY ALLEN: Master Drummer of Afrobeat
(Duke University Press, 2013)
Click HERE for link to publisher's page
"Tony Allen brings the music scene in Lagos, Nigeria, to life, the dynamic and spiritual music that the world came to know as Afrobeat. He shows what it means to be a musician and a master drummer, and he shares the stories not only of Fela Kuti but also of many other important musicians."
— Randy Weston, author of, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston
"Tony Allen is an engaging person, an important musical figure during a dynamic era in African music, and a major contributor in the creation of an influential musical genre. He and Fela Kuti emerge in his portrayal as dedicated musical seekers who continually struggled to develop and protect their art. Allen's memoir is an exceptional achievement that will make readers wish to have been there with them to live it all again."
— John M. Chernoff, percussionist, ethnographer, author
A critical companion to the radical DIY record label that challenges the conventions of ethnography, representation, and the category of “world music”
“As much an ethnography of Sublime Frequencies as it is a study of them as ethnographers, Punk Ethnography is a gloriously multiform study, a rich investigation of their defiant, unaffiliated, grass roots take on the ethnomusicological enterprise, fearlessly interspersing essays with interviews, posing difficult questions and drawing out the nuances of SF’s gleefully rogue persona.”
—John Corbett, author of Microgroove: Forays into Other Music
Six Black Atlantic Dances
from David Hartt: The Histories (Cole Akers, ed.). Inventory Press, Los Angeles, 2021
Warps, Ribbons, Crumpled Surfaces and Superimposed Shapes: Surfing the Contours of Miles Davis’s ‘Lost Quintet
Architecture and Design in America. University of Texas at Austin: Center for American Architecture and Design. Issue #18 (2014)
The Wire Primer: Steve Lacy from The Wire #361, March 2014
"Epiphanies: Butch Morris" from The Wire #356, October 2013
"The Wire Primer: King Tubby” from The Wire #337, March 2012
Miles Davis, The Complete On the Corner Sessions in Jazz Perspectives
Volume 3, Issue 3 December 2009 (record review)
Enter With Caution" introductory essay in Wangechi Mutu: A Shady Promise (exhibition catalogue). Venice: Damiani
“Fela and the Funk” in The Black President: The Art & Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (exhibition catalogue). New Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003"
“African Music and African-American Audiences"
from New York Times, 17 July 2001
(VP/Greensleeves Records 2021)
(Soul Jazz SJR CD 166, 2007)
(P-Vine Records, 2005)
(Honest Jon HJR CD 17, 2005)
(Honest Jon HJR CD 15, 2005)
(Honest Jon HJR CD 101, 2004)
(Honest Jon HJR CD 102, 2004)
(Graviton, 2001)
(Blues Interaction PCD-5551, 1999)
(11 CDs, various titles) (2000). MCA/Universal/Barclay 314 547 026-2 thru 314 547 384-2
"Ethnography, Sound Studies and the Black Atlantic: A Conversation Between Michael Veal and Whitney Slaten"
from Current Musicology, No, 99-100, Spring 2017 (Didier Sylvain, Guest Editor)
Interview: Michael Veal" (with Wills Glasspiegel)
from Afropop Worldwide, 2010