Teo Macero RIP

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