Teo Macero RIP

A Tribute to Jack Johnson. RIP.

"Teo" from More Music From the Carnegie Hall Concert, then In A Silent Way over here

aw man and I've been meaning to get that OTC box for months now...

RIP big guy

;_;

RIP

I'm going to close my eyes and listen to In a Silent Way now.

From the sound of that obituary, Teo would not want you to get the OTC box set, or any Miles box set for that matter -

"Mr. Macero strongly believed that the finished versions of Davis’s LPs, with all their intricate splices and sequencing — done on tape with a razor blade, in the days before digital editing — were the work of art, the entire point of the exercise. He opposed the current practice of releasing boxed sets that include all the material recorded in the studio, including alternate and unreleased takes. Mr. Macero was not involved in Columbia’s extensive reissuing of Davis’s work for the label, in lavish boxed sets from the mid-’90s until last year."

aww homey, may you rest peacefully

RIP!

My wife came into the office while I had IASW up pretty loud and said "what IS that, that's gorgeous!"

a god. farewell.

From the sound of that obituary, Teo would not want you to get the OTC box set, or any Miles box set for that matter -

Listening to the boxes -- especially the In A Silent Way box -- gave me a far deeper appreciation of Macero's genius. It's quite mind-blowing hearing the alternate takes that eventually made up the finished product, and only a listener/producer as sensitive as Macero could have made such perfect choices and come up with the ideal placement for those choices.

It's actually sad that he died so bitter about those boxes. Not to mention the very difficult relationship he had with Miles over the years, being fired and re-hired and fired again and whatnot. Sad news.

so so so so so so so so lame. RIP TM, my favorite producer ever.

yeah as much as I love the Jack Johnson Sessions stuff it does sprawl a bit at times...Teo was quite clearly the guiding force on all that stuff and ahead of his (jazzbo) time, no Bill Laswell without Teo, right?

No lots of other folks, too. As I said on my blog, Hank Shocklee should pour some out for Teo.

Could any of you publishy types instruct me on the rightness vs. wrongness of the Pitchfork obit being a ridiculous summary of the NYT piece, written by someone who may or may not have ever heard the name Teo Macero before today? I mean, they site Ratliff's article, but it appears that they should have cited it in every sentence.

damn damn damn.

rip man.

i keep thinking about the snippets of miles' vocie on the complete quintet box...(demonic chuckle) "teo...teeeeoo.." RIP

yeah, well I guess there's somebody who writes for Pitchfork who could have said something halfway original or incisive about Macero, but they didn't get that person. the piece itself is borderline unacceptable writing, as prose, like the first sentence says: "Legendary jazz producer and player Teo Macero-- best known for his work with Miles Davis during his incredibly fertile jazz-rock fusion period of the late 1960s and early 70s." So he was best known for his--Teo Macero's?--"jazz-rock fusion period"? Or was that maybe Miles Davis? You can't have "his" refer to two different people in the same sentence. Sloppy bullshit and who cares what Pitchfork thinks of Teo Macero?

I hope NPR runs something on Macero, too--they ran a pretty long interview with Joel Dorn after that fine producer passed away late last year.

for some reason my first thought was "why would someone revive this?"
-- Scik Mouthy

You're not the only one. Maybe I thought that he was already gone due to his lack of involvement in all the box sets and the hype surrounding them. I don't remember him being interviewed at all on the Ken Burns jazz thing, either, but I might be wildly misremembering that.

A titanic figure in music. RIP.

RIP!
Great, long interview with Teo here: http://furious.com/perfect/teomacero.html
He does seem like an interesting guy. The photos I've seen of him, he looks so straightlaced. But he was apparently the guy who was listening (and absorbing) all of those long, nutso Miles jams/live performances. I'm sure he knew that stuff better than Miles did in some cases. And it's true, as noted above, those unedited takes on the box sets really serve to highlight what an amazing, creative job he did with the performances. I can see how from his perspective the box sets might take some of the magic out of what he and Miles accomplished though.

I didn't know that Joel Dorn had died until reading this thread.

RIP Teo.

I don't remember him being interviewed at all on the Ken Burns jazz thing, either, but I might be wildly misremembering that.

he is one of the (many) glaring omissions from that series. but it also wouldn't have fit with burns'/crouch's/marsalis' thesis, that "fusion" was nothing more than a commercial sellout move by miles. a serious interview with macero (or, for that matter, with any of miles' sidemen from that period) would have contradicted that tired-ass presumption, and in the process exposed burns'/crouch's/marsalis' deficiencies.

I read in "The Last Miles" by George Cole that Columbia brought in Teo to produce "The Man With the Horn" to establish a sense of continuity and familiarity for Miles. Teo claims he did almost nothing in the studio except turn the equipment on. Unsurprisingly, he thought the music was garbage. I don't recall whether he subsequently went on to do Star People or not. That one has a few edits on it that sound like Teo's work.... Whether he had anything to do with it, it's the last listenable Miles album at any rate.

Teo was fired midway through the Star People sessions, as I recall.

Listening to the boxes -- especially the In A Silent Way box -- gave me a far deeper appreciation of Macero's genius. It's quite mind-blowing hearing the alternate takes that eventually made up the finished product, and only a listener/producer as sensitive as Macero could have made such perfect choices and come up with the ideal placement for those choices.

this is so very otm

he is one of the (many) glaring omissions from that series. but it also wouldn't have fit with burns'/crouch's/marsalis' thesis, that "fusion" was nothing more than a commercial sellout move by miles. a serious interview with macero (or, for that matter, with any of miles' sidemen from that period) would have contradicted that tired-ass presumption, and in the process exposed burns'/crouch's/marsalis' deficiencies.

No argument there. I always thought the Burns jazz thing was a pretty terrible documentary. I only brought it up because his lack of involvement in it was one of the things that lead me to believe he was already dead.

Guy kept a pretty low profile.

Anybody ever hear any of the albums he released on the Teo Records label? I'm imagining it's pretty tasteful straight-ahead stuff.

Yeah he did an album with the Prestige quartet (quintet?) that's pretty straight, well-done Bag's Groove style stuff.

Listening to the boxes -- especially the In A Silent Way box -- gave me a far deeper appreciation of Macero's genius.

I was just coming here to say something like this about the Silent Way box. Teo's right about this one, I think -- the finished product is the whole point. But if you know the album well, listening to the box set is like wandering around the construction site, recognizing what parts of the framing will eventually become what room. And when you finally get to the finished record -- not even 40 minutes of music made out of four or so hours of takes -- it's all the more astonishing. It's a TITANIC feat of editing that's more like collage art.

The On the Corner box has so many merits apart from just that insight, though, and I cannot possibly recommend it enough. The final album isn't a collage of the master takes the way In a Silent Way is, it's mostly the same takes edited to a reasonable length. The released album begins with what sounds like a clumsy cut into the middle of a jam already well underway, which I always liked about it. The first track on this box is the unedited master of that take, and it starts exactly the same way, which totally startled me. It doesn't really "begin" at all; it lurches into existence fully formed, like it's busting out of Zeus's skull. There's 20 astonishing minutes of that one take, and then six more hours of music from the same time that (I find) can be listened to all in one go, especially given a few good stimulants and a lack of distraction. It's a very particular state of mind, a special musical place that I can't think of any analog to. DO NOT MISS.

No obituary I've seen for the record producer Teo Macero (1925-2008) has mentioned that he was also a composer

http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2008/02/name_from_the_past.html

the linked discography at cd baby has over 20 albums: http://cdbaby.com/found?allsearch=teo+macero&submit=search