the Amazon.com Joe Maneri biography

Joe Maneri
Biography

Born February 9, 1927, in Brooklyn, NY.

Reedman Joe Maneri mixes an encyclopedic knowledge of microtonal music
(he's written a respected textbook on the subject) with an acute ear
for improvisation. The father of violinist Mat Maneri, he's long been
a professor at the New England Conservatory, but didn't have any
recordings as a leader released until he was 67 (Get Ready to Receive
Yourself). Maneri's parents were Sicilian immigrants. He quit school
at age 15 to play music professionally, and in the spirit of the true
gigging musician took all available work. Of course, that meant lots
of wedding jobs (Jewish, Greek, and various Balkan ethnicities) and
bar mitzvahs, experiences he absorbed into his musical persona. He was
also studying modern classical music, and in the 1940s he got together
with a small group of like-minded musicians to experiment with free
improvisation and 12-tone music. In 1961 three of Maneri's classical
compositions were performed at Carnegie Recital Hall to favorable
reviews, and in 1963 Third Stream conceptualist Gunther Schuller hired
Maneri to play tenor saxophone on a Third Stream composition by David
Reck. Next, Schuller pushed Atlantic Records to sign Maneri, and
although the company passed on this opportunity, a Maneri-helmed
quartet recorded a demo that finally appeared 35 years later. In 1970
Schuller hired Maneri to teach composition at the New England
Conservatory, and Maneri moved to the Boston area and settled into the
academic life. He apparently played only rarely in public until
Maneri's son Mat and some other area musicians and students prodded
Joe into greater activity. In 1995 the English label Leo put out an
album, certainly the most startling debut of the year or perhaps the
decade, and Maneri finally began to receive the acclaim his truly
unique talent merits. (Leo Lab, 1995, prod. Personasound Productions,
Leo Feigin), Maneri's debut album, is as challenging as the most
"outside" free jazz, but also generally subdued, which allows better
appreciation of his fine gradations of tone quality. All the
compositions are group improvisations except for "Body and Soul,"
which is given a deeply felt reading. Bassist John Lockwood and
drummer Randy Peterson provide sensitive accompaniment. Though it's a
concert recording (from 1993), Dahabenzapple [Rating: 5.0] (Hat Jazz,
1996, prod. Joe Maneri, Mat Maneri, Pia Uehlinger, Werner X.
Uehlinger) has no showboating. In fact, it displays a very special
intimacy over the course of its three 20-minute-plus improvisations,
with Maneri putting so much into each note that a single phrase can
carry as much meaning as an entire piece in mainstream jazz. Cecil
McBee replaces Lockwood here.