Joe Maneri, one of the group's leaders, began playing quarter tones in Greek wedding bands in the 1940s and has gone on to become a revered spokesman on micro-tonal music, straddling both contemporary classical music and jazz genres. He has taught at the New England Conservatory now for over thirty years and instructs one of the few courses in micro-tonal composition in the US. He is co-author of Preliminary Studies in the Virtual Pitch Continuum and is co-inventor of a microtonal keyboard that has 588 notes with 72 notes per octave. He is also founder and president of the Boston Micro-tonal Society.
Maneri states that “microtones can give us melodies, new melodies. Micro-tones are going to take over... I believe that we are in a new Renaissance and the Renaissance is here in America." He sees micro-tones as a means to inject a sense of freshness into a music that has evolved for over a century. Still, he clearly sees that micro-tones are not part of the classic definition of jazz, as are improvisation and sense of swing. He says: “If I play a thousand micro-tones, what's that worth if the rhythm isn't happening? In some ways the rhythm is the most vital part of what we're doing."
Paul Bley, one of jazz's foremost creative pianists, believes that the music promulgated by the Maneri Ensemble is some of the most “cutting edge" music of our time. He has stated that Joe Maneri is “a genius
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