Results for "Teo Macero"

Teo Macero

Teo Macero is an amazing man of music; he has worked intimately with some of the greatest figures in the history of jazz as, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, and Thelonius Monk, in the creation of some of their most enduring works. Attilio Joseph Macero was born and raised in Glens Falls, New York. After serving in the United States Navy, he moved to New York City in 1948 to attend the Juilliard School of Music. He studied composition, and graduated from Juilliard in 1953 with Bachelor's and Master's degrees. In 1953, Macero co-founded Charles Mingus' Jazz Composers Workshop, and became a major contributor to the New York City avant garde jazz scene.He performed live, and recorded several albums with Mingus and the other Workshop members over the next three years, including “Jazzical Moods” (1954) and “Jazz Composers Workshop” ( 1955).During this time frame, in 1954 Macero also recorded “Explorations.” While he had contributed compositions to other albums, this was the first full album of his own compositions, and Macero's first album as a leader. He joined Columbia in 1957 in the capacity of producer, and produced hundreds of records while at the label

Thelonious Monk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Of Deep And Staggering Genius

By CHRIS MAY

Thelonious Monk's position in cultural history grows in stature with each passing year and every new generation. Lionised by jazz fans and a continuing influence on musicians, Monk in 2020 is also held to be a hero by the hip hop movement. While his music no longer has the power to shock that it once possessed, ...

Dave Brubeck: Lullabies

By CHRIS MAY

Pianist and composer Dave Brubeck's centenary falls in December 2020 and two albums are being released to coincide. One is the outstanding Time OutTakes (Brubeck Editions), consisting of out-takes from the sessions which produced Time Out (Columbia, 1959). The album includes vibrant alternative readings of “Blue Rondo A La Turk," “Kathy's Waltz" and “Time Out" itself ...

Chet Baker: An Alternative Top Ten Albums To Get Lost In

By CHRIS MAY

Chet Baker was born to a farmer's daughter and a hard-drinking, weed-smoking singer and guitarist in a Western Swing band in Yale, Oklahoma in 1929. Like many Okies, the family fared badly during the Great Depression but did a little better after moving to Glendale, California in 1939. Largely self-taught as a trumpeter, Baker honed his ...

Lift Every Voice And Sing: Twenty #BlackLives Albums That Matter

By CHRIS MAY

Jazz has been inextricably linked with social and political protest since at least the late 1930s, when Billie Holiday made famous the leftist songwriter and poet Abel Meeropol's “Strange Fruit." The song, which has a power to move that is undiminished by familiarity, likens the bodies of lynched African Americans to fruit hanging in trees.

Jazz & Film: An Alternative Top 20 Soundtrack Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Jazz and the movies have a shared history stretching back almost a hundred years. The relationship came into its own in the US in the mid twentieth century. Elia Kazan's 1950 movie Panic In The Streets is an early example of how film makers used jazz-based soundtracks to enhance drama and atmosphere and create ambiances of ...

Adam Rudolph / Ralph M. Jones / Hamid Drake: Imaginary Archipelago

By MARK CORROTO

Often the music of Adam Rudolph can be a bit intimidating. An authority in Afro-Cuban, Indian, West Africa musics and jazz, Rudolph's performances remind budding ethnomusicologists and jazz critics their knowledge inhabits a very provincial realm. Luckily that intimidation is reserved to academics and writers. The remaining listening audience is free to enjoy these sounds associated ...

Prestige Records: An Alternative Top 20 Albums

By CHRIS MAY

Along with Alfred Lion's Blue Note and Orrin Keepnews' Riverside, Bob Weinstock's Prestige was at the top table of independent New York City-based jazz labels from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s. Like those other two labels, Prestige built up a profuse catalogue packed with enduring treasures. Originally a record retailer, Weinstock ...

Kenny Barron and Friends Celebrate Monk at SFJAZZ

By HARRY S. PARISER

Kenny Barron and Friends Celebrate Monk Herbst Theater SFJAZZ San Francisco, CA October 10, 2019 Seventy-six-year-old pianist Kenny Barron needs no introduction to avid jazz fans, having been a fixture on the scene for decades. He is known for his own work as well as his participation as co-founder of ...

SPHERES at Nublu 151

By PETER JUREW

SPHERES Nublu 151 New York, NY July 8 and August 6, 2019 SPHERES is a jazz collective recently started by keyboardist Jamie Saft and electric guitarist Chuck Hammer playing monthly gigs at Nublu, a loft-club showcase for new music in jny: New York City's East Village. Taking inspiration as well as ...