Michael C. Heller

Michael C. Heller is a jazz historian, musicologist, and Associate Professor in the Music Department at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on the post-1960s jazz avant garde, musician-organized collectives, sound studies, and archival theory. His first monograph Loft Jazz: Improvising New York in the 1970s (University of California Press) received the 2016 H. Earle Johnson Publication Subvention from the Society for American Music, and was named one of the five best jazz books of 2017 by the New York City Jazz Record. His next book, a collection of sound studies essays titled Just Beyond Listening: Essays of Sonic Encounter, will be published by the University of California Press in November 2023. Heller has published additional research and reviews in Jazz Research Journal, Sound Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Jazz Perspectives, and the Journal of the American Musicological Society. Since 2018, he has served as the founding editor-in-chief of Jazz and Culture, one of the top two interdisciplinary academic jazz journals in the United States. He is also currently collaborating with percussionist Juma Sultan in writing Sultan’s autobiography.