Filmed in 2008 in a hotel room in the Lower East Side NYC and using original artwork by Joe Sacco, Harvey Pekar reads from his comic American Splendor telling the story of unknown jazz legend... Teo Macero, producer of Miles, Monk and Mingus.
In 2008 American comic book legend Harvey Pekar is filmed at a Lower East Side Side hotel reading the Teo Macero story from his American Splendor Comic. Written by Harvey and drawn by Joe Sacco (Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde) the story makes plain Harvey's love for the unsung heroes of jazz.
If you can be both legend and unsung then Teo Macero defines the terms. Producer of the 3 top selling jazz albums of all time (number one being Kind of Blue by Miles Davis) Teo worked with Miles, Mingus, Monk, Brubeck and Ellington among many others to create multimillion sellers, avant-garde oddities and avant-garde multimillion sellers. Yet he is little known outside a relatively small number of aficionados.
Arguably the most famous "comic book guy" in the world and a national treasure in the USA, Harvey was also a respected jazz critic and collector. Never missing an opportunity, Harvey boosted artists and jazz men in particular who he thought the public needed to hear about and who hadn't had a fair shake of the stick. Often the more avant-garde the better.
Harvey also deeply believed in the capacity of the comic book as a medium to be much more than a vehicle for superheroes and flights of fantasy.
Combining Harvey's inimitable reading and Joe Sacco's simply filmed artwork, Harvey Pekar's Teo Macero explores a corner of what was once the archetypal low art through the medium of an art form which more and more has aspirations above its own station.