During his 37-year teaching career at the New England Conservatory in Boston and a longer but more intermittent run as a multireedist and composer he put his stamp on generations of improvisers, along with some perplexedly enchanted audiences.
Thats probably a reason for the sting of his absence, still, among those who knew him well. It was surely a reason for the poignancy of a three-hour tribute at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn on Tuesday night, what would have been his 83rd birthday.
It was a family affair. Mr. Maneris widow, Sonja, spoke touchingly, and each of his three sons made musical contributions. Sal, the oldest, sang A Prelude to a Kiss in a disarming baritone croon; Abe, the youngest, played a broken hymn on electric piano. (Well get to Mat.)
There were testimonials from former students and fellow players, most of them recalling the moment they met Mr. Maneri as if relating a conversion narrative.
Mr. Maneri was a pioneer of microtonal theory, specializing in a pitch spectrum ungoverned by the tempered scale. Much of the evenings music reflected that conviction.
Mat Maneri, a violist, had a lot to do with this: he was the person who worked most with his father, often with the bassist Ed Schuller and the drummer Randy Peterson, who both joined him for a tantalizingly brief improvisation, and later served as a house rhythm section.
