Michael E. Veal

Michael E. Veal, is Professor of Music and African–American Studies, focusing on ethnomusicology. His work has addressed issues of biography, history, analysis, politics, and technology in various musics of Africa and the African diaspora. At Yale, he has taught courses on African music, jazz, popular music, and ethnomusicological theory and history. Before coming to Yale, he taught at Mount Holyoke College (1996–1998) and New York University (1997–1998). His book Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon (Temple University Press, 2000) uses the life of one of Africa’s most influential musicians of the post–WWII era to explore themes of African post–coloniality, musical and cultural interchange between cultures of Africa and the African diaspora, and the political uses of music in Africa. His book Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (Wesleyan University Press, 2007) examines the ways in which the studio–based innovations of Jamaican recording engineers during the 1970s created a sonic space for the emergence of a distinctly post–colonial Jamaican culture locally, while they worked to transform the structure and concept of the post–WWII popular song globally. His current work–in–progress, "Technotopia" examines the intersection of free–jazz and jazz–rock fusion in the work of Miles Davis. Professor Veal is also a musician and leader of the Aqua Ife big band and small group.