so, what exactly was Teo Macero doing?

someone should interview holger and get him to go into as much detail as that teo interview upthread, I don't think anyone has done in the past. I have always understood it as: band improvise for 12 hours, holger then edits the jams down to more coherent "songs".

holger's tape collage stuff is most obvious on the really outre stuff like "aumgm" and "cutaway" but there's edits all over the shop on "mother sky", damo's vocal running backwards for half of "oh yeah" then forwards again when the beat changes, that synth dropout bit in the middle of "halleluhwah", etc.

also bear in mind that he was editing down to two-track tape (on every can record up to landed), as opposed to teo having whatever multitrack board columbia had at the time at his disposal.

reading above interview, it doesn't sound like Teo was using much more than that.

--Bill Laswell

http://www.iht.com/articles/2000/01/12/laswell.t.php

I remember reading this interview and it kind of bugged the shit out of me. It's like Laswell is saying Macero is a hack, right?

That was an amazing interview, Dan. Thanks for posting it.

i just listened to that. you're right about how subtle it is. it's almost like if they are doing a jungle remix or something and playing the guitar pattern on harmonics.

I'll have to remember not to [em]read[/em] laswell.

Some interview clips with Teo Macero came across my Youtube scroll and they are all really entertaining as this guy worked with some serious people. (I knew from liner notes he played with Mingus back in the early days of the 50s.) One story I did not know was that he did some work with the Lounge Lizards. He tells a story about doing some concerts up in Montreal that were really big with them mixing an orchestra and jazz group. The way he described the setup really sounds similar to some of those John Zorn Cobra games as he would have small parts written for the orchestra and bring it in and out of the Lizards improvisations over the piece.

I went looking for that hoping maybe there would be a recording, but did come across this one and I thought it was a really good and interesting listen.

Fusion - Teo Mascero, The Lounge Lizards & London Philharmonic Orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVYsq4XzlQU