Cecil Taylor | |
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 Taylor atMoers Festival 2008 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Cecil Percival Taylor (1929-03-25)March 25, 1929 Long Island City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | April 5, 2018(2018-04-05) (aged 89) Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz,avant-garde jazz,free jazz,free improvisation |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, bandleader, composer, improviser, poet |
| Instrument | Piano |
| Years active | 1956–2018 |
| Labels | Transition,Blue Note,Freedom,Hathut,Enja,FMP |
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929 – April 5, 2018)[1][2][3] was an American pianist and poet.[4][5]
Taylor wasclassically trained and was one of the pioneers offree jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in compleximprovisation often involvingtone clusters and intricatepolyrhythms. His technique has been compared topercussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano,Val Wilmer used the phrase "eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's style.[6] He has been referred to as "Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings".[7]
Cecil Percival Taylor was born on March 25, 1929, inLong Island City,Queens,[8] and raised inCorona, Queens.[9] As an only child to a middle-class family, Taylor's mother Almeda Ragland Taylor encouraged him to play music at an early age. He began playing piano at age six and went on to study at theNew York College of Music andNew England Conservatory inBoston. At the New England Conservatory, Taylor majored in popular music arrangement. During his time there, he also became familiar with contemporary Europeanart music.Bela Bartók andKarlheinz Stockhausen notably influenced his music.[10]
In 1955, Taylor moved back to New York City from Boston. He formed a quartet with soprano saxophonistSteve Lacy, bassistBuell Neidlinger, and drummerDennis Charles.[10] Taylor's first recording,Jazz Advance, featured Lacy and was released in 1956.[11] The recording is described byRichard Cook andBrian Morton in thePenguin Guide to Jazz: "While there are still many nods to conventionalpost-bop form in this set, it already points to the freedoms in which the pianist would later immerse himself."[12] Taylor's quartet featuring Lacy also appeared at the 1957Newport Jazz Festival, which was made into the albumAt Newport.[13] Taylor collaborated with saxophonistJohn Coltrane in 1958 onStereo Drive, now available asColtrane Time.[14]
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taylor's music grew more complex and moved away from existing jazz styles. Gigs were often hard to come by, and club owners found that Taylor's approach of playing long pieces tended to impede business.[15] His 1959LP recordLooking Ahead! showcased his innovation as a creator as compared to the jazz mainstream. Unlike others at the time, Taylor utilized virtuosic techniques and made swift stylistic shifts from phrase to phrase. These qualities, among others, still remained notable distinctions of his music for the rest of his life.[16]
Landmark recordings, such asUnit Structures (1966), also appeared. Within theCecil Taylor Unit (a distinction that was often used at performances and recordings between 1962 and 2006 for a shifting group of sidemen), musicians were able to develop new forms of conversational interplay. In the early 1960s, an uncreditedAlbert Ayler worked with Taylor, jamming and appearing on at least one recording,Four, which was unreleased until appearing on the 2004 Aylerbox setHoly Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962–70).[17]
By 1961, Taylor was working regularly with alto saxophonistJimmy Lyons, who would become one of his most important and consistent collaborators. Taylor, Lyons, and drummerSunny Murray (and laterAndrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of theCecil Taylor Unit, Taylor's primary ensemble until Lyons' death in 1986. Lyons' playing, strongly influenced by jazz iconCharlie Parker, retained a strongblues sensibility and helped keep Taylor's increasinglyavant garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.[18]
Taylor began to perform solo concerts in the latter half of the 1960s. The first known recorded solo performance was "Carmen With Rings" (59 minutes) inDe Doelen concert hall inRotterdam on July 1, 1967. Two days earlier, Taylor had played the same composition in theAmsterdam Concertgebouw. Many of his later concerts were released on album and includeIndent (1973), side one ofSpring of Two Blue-J's (1973),Silent Tongues (1974),Garden (1982),For Olim (1987),Erzulie Maketh Scent (1989), andThe Tree of Life (1998).[19] He began to garner critical and popular acclaim, playing forJimmy Carter on theWhite House Lawn,[20] lecturing as anartist-in-residence at universities, and eventually being awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship in 1973.[21]
In 1976, Taylor directed a production ofAdrienne Kennedy'sA Rat's Mass atLa MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in theEast Village of Manhattan. His production combined the original script with a chorus of orchestrated voices used as instruments.Jimmy Lyons,Rashid Bakr,Andy Bey,Karen Borca,David S. Ware andRaphe Malik performed in the production as the Cecil Taylor Unit, among other musicians and actors.[22]
Following Lyons' death in 1986, Taylor formed the Feel Trio in the late 1980s withWilliam Parker on bass andTony Oxley on drums. The group can be heard onCelebrated Blazons,Looking (Berlin Version) The Feel Trio and the 10-disc set2 Ts for a Lovely T.[23][24][25] Compared to his prior groups with Lyons, the Feel Trio had a more abstract approach, tethered less to jazz tradition and more aligned with the ethos of Europeanfree improvisation. He also performed with larger ensembles andbig band projects.
Taylor's extended residence inBerlin in 1988 was documented by the German labelFMP, resulting in abox set of performances in duet and trio with a large number of European free improvisors, including Oxley,Derek Bailey,Evan Parker,Han Bennink,Tristan Honsinger,Louis Moholo, andPaul Lovens. Most of his later recordings have been released on European labels, with the exception ofMomentum Space (a meeting withDewey Redman andElvin Jones) onVerve/Gitanes. The classical labelBridge released his 1998Library of Congress performanceAlgonquin, a duet with violinistMat Maneri.[26]
Taylor continued to perform for capacity audiences around the world with live concerts, usually playing his favored instrument, aBösendorfer piano featuring nine extra lower-register keys. In 1987, he toured England with Australian pianistRoger Woodward, presenting recitals on which Woodward played solo works byXenakis,Takemitsu, andFeldman, followed by Taylor, also playing solo.[27] Adocumentary on Taylor, entitledAll the Notes, was released onDVD in 2006 by directorChris Felver. Taylor was also featured in a 1981 documentary film entitledImagine the Sound, in which he discusses and performs his music, poetry, and dance.[28] In 1993, he was awarded aMacArthur Fellowship.[29][30]
Taylor recorded sparingly in the 2000s, but continued to perform with his own ensembles (the Cecil Taylor Ensemble and the Cecil Taylor Big Band) and with other musicians such asJoe Locke,Max Roach, andAmiri Baraka.[31] In 2004, the Cecil Taylor Big Band at theIridium Jazz Club was nominated a best performance of 2004 byAll About Jazz.[32] The Cecil Taylor Trio was nominated for the same at theHighline Ballroom in 2009.[33] The trio consisted of Taylor, Albey Balgochian, andJackson Krall. In 2010, Triple Point Records released a deluxelimited-edition doubleLP titledAilanthus/Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions of 2 Root Songs, a set of duos with Taylor's longtime collaboratorTony Oxley that was recorded live at theVillage Vanguard.[34]
In 2013, he was awarded theKyoto Prize for Music.[35] He was described as "An Innovative Jazz Musician Who Has Fully Explored the Possibilities of Piano Improvisation".[36] In 2014, his career and 85th birthday were honored at thePainted Bride Art Center inPhiladelphia with the tribute concert event "Celebrating Cecil".[37] In 2016, Taylor received a retrospective at theWhitney Museum of American Art entitled "Open Plan: Cecil Taylor".[38]
In 2008, Taylor performed withPauline Oliveros at theCurtis R Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center atRensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The concert was recorded and is available on a DVD which also features a 75-minute video of a Taylor poetry recital entitledFloating Gardens: The Poetry Of Cecil Taylor.[39][40] Taylor, along with dancerMin Tanaka, was the subject ofAmiel Courtin-Wilson's 2016 documentary filmThe Silent Eye.[41]
In addition to piano, Taylor was always interested in ballet and dance. His mother, who died while he was young, was a dancer and played the piano and violin. Taylor once said: "I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes."[42] He collaborated with dancerDianne McIntyre from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s.[43] In 1979, he composed and played the music for a 12-minute ballet, "Tetra Stomp: Eatin' Rain in Space", featuringMikhail Baryshnikov andHeather Watts.[44]
Taylor was a poet, and citedRobert Duncan,Charles Olson, andAmiri Baraka as major influences.[45] He often integrated his poems into his musical performances, and they frequently appear in theliner notes of his albums. The albumChinampas, released byLeo Records in 1987, is a recording of Taylor reciting several of his poems while accompanying himself on percussion.[46] His poetry was likened to his music primarily by the ways in which Taylor alters and transforms material both linguistic and musical.[47]
According to Steven Block,free jazz originated with Taylor's performances at theFive Spot Cafe in 1957 and withOrnette Coleman in 1959.[48] In 1964, Taylor co-founded theJazz Composers Guild to enhance opportunities foravant-garde jazz musicians.[49]
Taylor's style and methods have been described as "constructivist".[50] DespiteScott Yanow's warning regarding Taylor's "forbidding music" ("Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music is not for everyone"), he praises Taylor's "remarkable technique and endurance", and his "advanced", "radical", "original", and uncompromising "musical vision".[5]
This musical vision is a large part of Taylor's legacy:
Playing with Taylor I began to be liberated from thinking about chords. I'd been imitating John Coltrane unsuccessfully and because of that I was really chord conscious.
— Archie Shepp, quoted inLeRoi Jones, album liner notes forFour for Trane (Impulse A-71, 1964)
Scott Yanow ofAllMusic wrote: "Taylor's high-energy atonalism fit in well with the free jazz of the period but he was actually leading the way rather than being part of a movement. [...] In fact, it could be safely argued that no jazz music of the era approached the ferocity and intensity of Cecil Taylor's."[51]
Taylor moved toFort Greene, Brooklyn, in 1983.[9] He died at his Brooklyn residence on April 5, 2018, at the age of 89.[52][53] At the time of his death, Taylor was working on an autobiography and future concerts, among other projects.[54]
Taylor plays the piano... like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings...
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