Macero, Teo, 1925-2008

Teo (Attilio Joseph) Macero (b Glen Falls, NY, 30 Oct. 1925) was a composer and saxophonist from a young age. He entered the Juilliard School in 1948, where he studied composition with Henry Brant, and graduated with a BS and an MS in 1953; 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. Through his career, his compositions have included works for film, television, ballets, and orchestras. He won two Guggenheim fellowships (in 1953 and 1954), as well as a National Endowment for the Arts 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 longterm working relationship with Davis, which stretched from 1959 to 1983. Macero also produced about a dozen other important jazz artists during his Columbia tenure, as well as the New York Philharmonic conductor Andre Kostelanetz, and he oversaw many special projects for the label, including soundtracks for several Broadway musicals.

...