AMG Review of Best of Teo Macero

Scott Yanow
All Music Guide

This CD is not so much "The Best of Teo Macero" as it is "The Nearly Complete Teo Macero." With the exception of his conventional quintet date for Prestige in 1957 and one or two isolated tracks, this reissue has all of Macero's pre-1983 recordings as a leader, tenor saxophonist, and composer. Much of the music is essentially contemporary classical originals with jazz musicians sometimes playing the parts and usually getting a little space to improvise. Macero's tenor resembles Warne Marsh a bit. Much of the music will strike some as weird, others as an innovative precursor of Third Stream jazz. Although bassist Charles Mingus and altoist Lee Konitz are on a few tracks, some of the arrangements are overly pretentious and a bit dull, and it is an inexcusable omission that the dates are not listed. This rather esoteric CD is strictly for open-eared modern classical listeners.