#cecil taylor

[itsallmadonnasfault]

[jazzplusplus]

1968 - Centennial Jazz Festival - Berkeley, CA

Miles Davis Quintet, Gil Evans Orchestra, Thelonious Monk Quartet, Wes Montgomery Quartet, Herbie Hancock, Joe Williams, Carmen McRae, Cecil Taylor, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra

[radiophd]

cecil taylor -- i forgot

[therivershit]

Cecil Taylor by Andrew Putler

[dustedmagazine]

Cecil Taylor Unit — Live at Fat Tuesdays, February 9, 1980 (First Visit Archive)

Over the weekend of Feb. 8-9th, 1980, the Cecil Taylor Unit rolled into Fat Tuesday’s, a jazz club at 190 Third Avenue in Manhattan. Four sets were recorded over the weekend by Swiss producer Werner X. Uehlinger, probably some four hours of music. The next year, one of these sets was released by Uehlinger’s label HatHut. And now, over 40 years later, another set has been released as Live At Fat Tuesdays, February 9, 1980, the first record on Uehlinger’s new label First Visit Archive.

This release consists of one long, untitled composition by Cecil Taylor, split arbitrarily into three tracks, and is a little over an hour of intense music: at turns it threatens to boil over, could seem at home on a classical record, or has the shouts and claps of a revival meeting. It’s not the most accessible of Taylor’s records, but then his most interesting ones never are.

The set opens with Taylor on piano, gently exploring while the percussion duo of Sunny Murray and Jerome Cooper provide a sparse backing. Soon, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons enters and he and Taylor go back and forth for a bit. As Taylor’s playing grows faster and more percussive, Lyons starts working on variations of the same phrase, adding little flourishes here and there. As the pace continues to build, Taylor’s energy rises and about four minutes in, he launches into his first solo of the set. You can hear him exploring ideas, sometimes going back to a passage or two between bursts. This isn’t just free jazz, but something with a larger structure in mind. Taylor’s piano occasionally bursts into fragments of sound, his energetic playing seeming to swirl around the other players and pushing him to the forefront. After a little bit, violinist Ramsey Ameen enters, sounding like he just walked in off an Albert Ayler record, his tone thin and shrill. He adds a nice dissonant streak to Taylor’s music, a counter to the pumping, rhythmic piano.

Not far into the second part, Taylor changes tack: his playing slows down and settles into a slow, almost classical style. He’s not exactly playing it straight — there’s little signature flourishes between phrases here—  but he’s almost showing that he can play like Keith Jarrett if he wanted to. As his playing once again picks up and grows fragmented, Lyons reenters and trades licks. Together they build a flurry of notes, the rhythm section trailing just behind.

Later in the evening, another wrinkle emerges: someone starts to vocalize overtop of the music, almost speaking in tongues, as opposed to the poetry Taylor sometimes mixed into his music. As the tempo slows down, there’s layers of voices and hand claps and percussion, taking the music into another dimension. And as the set winds down, the voices grow stronger and more rapid, little bursts that almost mimic Taylor and Lyons playing. And finally, Taylor slows things down almost all the way, closing an intense hour of music with some slow, melodic playing.

Throughout Live at Fat Tuedsays Taylor’s playing isn’t just a mere accompaniment to his band. He never just guides things along with a well-placed chord here or there. His forceful, driving playing could be a band all in itself and acts almost like a bed for the rest of the musicians to work on top of. He occasionally guides them with a burst of playing or pushes someone forward with a low rumble from his left hand. But one could strip away everything else to just focus on him and they’d still have an engaging record.

With so many moving parts here, like the interplay between Taylor and the string section of Ameen and Alan Silva (bass, cello), or the way Lyons seems to effortlessly glide between Taylor’s flurry of notes, it can be easy to get overwhelmed on first listen. Thankfully, one can go back and relisten: an ability the audience this night at Fat Tuesday’s wasn’t able to have.

To think that this short-lived lineup was able to play with this kind of telekinesis and energy on any of these nights is almost breathtaking and makes one wish the two unreleased sets were also available to listen to. But until then, this is an essential and exciting addition to Taylor’s discography.

Roz Milner

[sivavakkiyar]

from the liner notes to Vijay Iyer & Craig Taborn’s ‘The Transitory Poems’

[alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry]

elegance in the extreme by Ntozake Shange

for Cecil Taylor

[toffeethief]

Cecil Taylor - This Was Nearly Mine

[warendenkform]

Jimmy Carter with Cecil Taylor

[itsallmadonnasfault]

@hysteria_at_danceteria

Madonna Photographed by Cecil Taylor at Art Worlds Institute of Creative Arts Thursday May 19 1977 S. Maine St., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108

[jazzdailyblog]

Exploring the Genius of Steve Lacy: A Jazz Innovator and Soprano Saxophone Master

Introduction: Steve Lacy, born Steven Norman Lackritz ninety years ago today on July 23, 1934, in New York City, was an avant-garde jazz musician and a master of the soprano saxophone. His contributions to jazz span over five decades, during which he pushed the boundaries of the genre, collaborated with some of the most influential musicians of his time, and created a body of work that continues…

[radiophd]

cecil taylor -- mirror and water gazing

[onryou-onryou]

Cecil Taylor Unit - Copenhagen 1969

[jazzplusplus]

Annonce de spectacles culturels à Bordeaux (théatre, cinema, musique, …) pour la saison commençant en octobre 1969. / Announcement of cultural shows in Bordeaux (theater, cinema, music, …) for the season starting in October 1969.

Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, Pharoah Sanders, Michel Portal, Oscar Peterson, Ronnie Scott, …

[sivavakkiyar]

For anyone interested in César Aira, one of his best stories, ‘Cecil Taylor’, is available online. It’s one of my favorites for more than the obvious reasons but also Bolaño called it ‘one of the five best stories I can remember’.

If you want some Taylor to listen to with it try any of his early three albums: Jazz Advance, Looking Ahead!, or The World Of Cecil Taylor

[emilytakesphoto]

very good music 👍