Macero, Teo, 1925-2008

Teo Macero (b. Attilio Joseph Macero) was a composer, arranger, record producer, and jazz saxophonist. He earned his BS and MS at The Juilliard School where he was a student of Henry Brant. A prolific composer for ballet, film, television and the concert hall, Macero was awarded two Guggenheim fellowships (1953-4, 1958), a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (1974), and commissions from the New York Philharmonic and the Juilliard School. He was was best known for his collaboration with Miles Davis while a producer at Columbia Records; Macero was also producer and arranger at Columbia for conductor Andre Kostelanetz.

Teo Macero, a composer, saxophonist, and music producer worked for Columbia Records from 1959 to 1975, before going on to found his own company, M. Productions.

Born Attilio Joseph Macero in Glen Falls, New York on October 30, 1925, Teo, who had been an accomplished composer and saxophonist from an early age, entered the Juilliard School in 1948. Macero studied composition there with Henry Brant, and graduated with a BS and an MS in 1953. While at Juilliard, he also won the BMI Student Composer's Award. Macero co-founded the Jazz Composers' Workshop with Charles Mingus the same year and performed and recorded with Mingus through 1956. He also worked with the vibraphonist Teddy Charles and recorded three of his own albums in the mid-1950s. At the same time, Macero was active as a composer, writing in an atonal style, as well as in the "third stream" concept pioneered by Mingus and Gunther Schuller. Throughout his career, his compositions have included works for film, television, ballets, and orchestras. Macero won two Guggenheim fellowships (in 1953 and 1954), as well as an NEA grant in 1974.

In 1956, Columbia Records producer George Avakian hired Macero as a tape editor. Following the departure of Avakian from the label in 1958, and the transfer of producer Irving Townsend to the West Coast in 1959, Macero became the label's main producer of jazz and commercial music. His most important clients at Columbia were Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus (Macero signed the latter two to the label). He is perhaps most famous for his long-term working relationship with Davis, which stretched from 1959 to 1983. Macero also produced about a dozen other important jazz artists during his Columbia tenure, along with the New York Philharmonic conductor, Andre Kostelanetz. In addition, he oversaw many special projects for the label, including soundtracks for several Broadway musicals. Macero left Columbia in 1975 to form his own company, M. Productions, and established the Teorecords label to produce his own, as well as, the music of other artists.