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Teo Macero

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Teo Macero, whose full name was Attilio Joseph Macero, was an American producer, saxophonist and composer. He was born in 1925 in Glens Falls, New York, and studied at the Juilliard School in New York, where he graduated in composition in 1953. That same year he co-founded Charles Mingus's Jazz Composers Workshop. As a composer he wrote, among other things, in third stream, a blend of jazz and classical music. His first own album, Explorations, appeared in 1954.

Music and breakthrough

In 1957 he joined Columbia Records, where he was a producer for twenty years. He worked with Mingus, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie and Tony Bennett, and made Brubeck's Time Out and Mingus Ah Um. His best-known collaboration was the one with Miles Davis. He produced or co-produced most of Davis's Columbia work, including Sketches of Spain. On the electric work, such as In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew from 1970, he took on even more the role of co-creator.

Influence

Davis and his band played long jams, and Macero cut and spliced the tape into new pieces. He repeated, swapped and reworked fragments, with techniques that later became commonplace in rock, hip hop and dance. Some critics felt he edited too much, but others called this precisely his great merit. His work shows that a studio does not merely capture what musicians play, but is itself an instrument.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. Notice how passages of music change abruptly, are repeated or almost dissolve, and bear in mind that this was not all played in one go.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists