Cecil Taylor

Infobox musical artist
Name = Cecil Taylor

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Img_capt = Cecil Taylor playing in his apartment in the 1960s (Photograph: Charles Rotmil)
Img_size =
Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth_name = Cecil Percival Taylor
Alias =
Born = Birth date and age|1929|3|15|mf=y
Died =
Origin = New York City
Instrument = piano
Genre = Avant-garde jazz
Occupation = bandleader, composer
Years_active = 1956 – present
Label = Transition Blue Note Freedom
Hat Hut
Enja Records
FMP
Associated_acts = Cecil Taylor Unit
URL =
Current_members =
Past_members = Steve Lacy, Jimmy Lyons, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Buell Neidlinger, Alan Silva, William Parker,Sunny Murray, Andrew Cyrille, Tony Oxley

Cecil Percival Taylor (born March 15 or March 25, 1929 in New York City) is an American pianist and poet.Yanow, Scott (2008). [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:fifyxqy5ldse~T1 "Cecil Taylor biography"] , "AllMusic".] Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the inventors of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His piano technique has been likened to percussion, for example described as "eighty-eight tuned drums" (referring to the number of keys on a piano). [cite book | author=Wilmer, Val | title=As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz | publisher=Quartet | year=1977|id=ISBN 0704331640|pages=45]

Biography

Taylor began playing piano at age six and went on to study at the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory. After first steps in R&B and swing-styled small groups in the early 1950s, he formed his own band with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in 1956.

Taylor's first recording, "Jazz Advance", featured Lacy and was released in 1956. It is described by Cook & Morton in the "Penguin Guide to Jazz": "While there are still many nods to conventional post-bop form in this set, it already points to the freedoms which the pianist would later immerse himself in."

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taylor's music grew increasingly complex, and moved away from existing jazz styles. It was often difficult for Taylor to find work, [cite book | author=Spellman, A. B. | title=Four Lives in the Bebop Business | publisher=Limelight | year=1985 originally 1966 | id=ISBN 0-87910-042-7] despite landmark recordings such as "Nefertiti the Beautiful One Has Come" (1962) "Unit Structures" (1966), and a pairing with pioneering saxophonist John Coltrane ("Coltrane Time/Hard Drivin' Jazz", 1958).

By 1961, Taylor was working regularly with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, one of his most important and consistent collaborators until Lyons's death in 1986. Taylor, Lyons and drummer Sunny Murray (and later Andrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of "The Unit", Taylor's primary group effort until Lyons's death in 1986. With the Unit, musicians developed often volcanic new forms of conversational interplay.

From the early 1970s onwards, Taylor began to perform solo concerts, some of which were released as the "Indent" and "Silent Tongues" albums. He began to garner critical, if not popular, acclaim, playing for Jimmy Carter on the White House Lawn, lecturing as an in-residence artist at universities, and eventually being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973 and then a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.

Following Lyons's death, Taylor has played in a variety of settings ranging from solo (e.g. "For Olim," "Garden," "Erzulie Maketh Scent," "The Tree of Life," and "In Willisau"), the "Feel Trio" formed in the early 1990s with William Parker (bass) and Tony Oxley (drums) ("Celebrated Blazons," "Looking (The Feel Trio)," and the 10-CD set "2 T's for a Lovely T") as well as larger ensembles and big-band projects. His extended residence in Berlin in 1988 was extensively documented by the German label FMP, resulting in a massive boxed set of performances in duet and trio with a who's who of European free improvisors, including Oxley, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, Tristan Honsinger, Louis Moholo, Paul Lovens, and others. Most of his recordings for the past several decades have been put out on European labels, with the exception of the unexpected release of "Momentum Space" (a meeting with Dewey Redman and Elvin Jones) on Verve/Gitanes. The classical label Bridge recently released his 1998 Library of Congress performance "Algonquin", a duet with violinist Mat Maneri. Few recordings from 2000 have yet been published, though Taylor, now in his seventies, continues to perform for capacity audiences around the world with live concerts, usually played on his favored instrument, the Bösendorfer piano that features 9 extra lower register keys. A documentary spotlighting the enigmatic musician, [http://www.chrisfelver.com/films/taylor.html All the Notes] , was released on DVD in 2006 by director Chris Felver.In addition to piano, Taylor has always been interested in ballet and dance. His mother, who died while he was still young, was a dancer and also played the piano and violin. Taylor once said: "I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes". He collaborated with dancer Dianne McIntyre in 1977 and 1979. In 1979 he also composed and played the music for a twelve-minute ballet "Tetra Stomp: Eatin' Rain in Space", featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Heather Watts.

Taylor is also an accomplished poet, citing Robert Duncan, Charles Olson and Amiri Baraka as major influences. [ [http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/funkhouser/ceciltaylor.html "being matter ignited..."] , Interview with Cecil Taylor by Chris Funkhouserpublished in "Hambone", No. 12 (Nathaniel Mackey, editor).] He often integrates his poems into his musical performances, and they frequently appear in the liner notes of his albums. The CD "Chinampas", released by Leo Records in 1987, is a recording of Taylor reciting several of his poems, accompanying himself on percussion.

Taylor is featured in the 1981 documentary film "Imagine the Sound", in which he discusses and performs his music, poetry and dance. He is openly gay.cite book |pages=61 |title=Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth Century Music |first=John |last=Gill |year=1995 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=0816627193]

Influence and musical style

According to Steven Block free jazz originated with the performances of Cecil Taylor at the Five Spot Cafe in 1957 and Ornette Coleman in 1959 ["Pitch-Class Transformation in Free Jazz". Author(s): Steven Block. Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 12, No. 2, (Autumn, 1990), pp. 181-202. Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music Theory.] . In 1964, Tayler co-founded the Jazz Composers Guild to enhance the working possibilities of avant-garde jazz musicians.

Taylor's style and methods have been described as "'constructivist'" [Review: [untitled] . Author(s): Robert Palmer. Reviewed work(s): Indent by Cecil Taylor. Source: "The Black Perspective in Music", Vol. 2, No. 1, (Spring, 1974), pp. 94-95.] . Despite Scott Yanow's warning regarding Taylor's, "forbidding music":he goes on to praise Taylor's, "remarkable technique and endurance," and his, "advanced", "radical", "original", and uncompromising, "musical vision."

This vision is one of Taylor's greatest influence:

Taylor was recognized with a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1991.

Discography

*"Jazz Advance", 1956
*"The Cecil Taylor Quartet at Newport", 1957
*"Looking Ahead!", 1958
*"Coltrane Time" (identical with "Hard Driving Jazz"), 1958
*"Love for Sale", 1959
*"The World of Cecil Taylor" (or "Air"), 1961
*"Jumpin' Punkins", 1961
*"New York City R&B" (with Buell Neidlinger), 1961
*"Cell Walk for Celeste", 1961
*"Mixed", 1961
*"Nefertiti the Beautiful One Has Come", 1962
*"Unit Structures", 1966
*"Conquistador!", 1966
*"Great Paris Concert", vol 1 & 2 (identical with "Student Studies"), 1966
*"Praxis", 1968
*"Communications", 1968 with Mike Mantler & Carla Bley's "JCOA: Jazz Composer's Orchestra" (featuring Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell and Gato Barbieri.)
*"The Great Concert" (identical with "Nuits de la Fondation Maeght"), 1969
*"Indent", 1973
*"Akisakila", 1973
*"Solo", 1973
*"Spring of Two Blue J's", 1973
*"Silent Tongues", 1974
*"Dark to Themselves", 1976
*"Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within)", 1976
*"Nachricht vom Lande", 1976
*Cecil Taylor & Mary Lou Williams: "Embraced", 1977
*"Cecil Taylor Unit", 1978
*"3 Phasis", 1978
*"Live in the Black Forest", 1978
*"One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye", 1978
*Tony Williams: "Joy of Flying", 1978
*Cecil Taylor and Max Roach: "Historic Concerts", 1979
*"Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!", 1980
*"It is in the Brewing Luminous", 1980
*"Calling it the 8th", 1981
*"Garden", 1981
*Cecil Taylor Segments II (Orchestra of two Continents): "Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants)", 1984
*"For Olim", 1986
*"Olu Iwa", 1986
*"Iwnontonwusi - Live at Sweet Basil", 1986
*"Live in Bologna", 1987
*"Live in Vienna", 1987
*"Chinampas", 1987
*"Tzotzil Mummers Tzotzil", 1987
*"Erzulie Maketh Scent", 1988
*"Pleistozaen mit Wasser", 1988
*"Riobec" - Cecil Taylor & Günter Sommer, 1988
*"Leaf Palm Hand", 1988
*"Spots, Circles, and Fantasy", 1988
*"Regalia" - Cecil Taylor & Paul Lovens, 1988
*"Remembrance", 1988
*"The Hearth", 1988
*"Riobec", 1988
*"Legba Crossing", 1988
*"Alms / Tiergarten (Spree)", 1988
*"In East Berlin", 1988
*"In Florescence," 1989
*"Looking (Berlin Version) solo", 1989
*"Looking (Berlin Version) Corona", 1989
*"Looking (The Feel Trio)", 1989
*"Celebrated Blazons", 1990
*"Doubly Holy House", 1990
*"Melancholy" - Cecil Taylor, Harri Sjöström, Evan Parker, Barry Guy, Wolfgang Fuchs
*"Nailed", 1990
*"The Tree of Life", 1991
*"Always a Pleasure" - Cecil Taylor, Harri Sjöström, Tristan Honsinger 1993
*"The Light of Corona"- Cecil Taylor, Harri Sjöström 1996
*"Almeda"- Cecil Taylor, Harri Sjöström 1996
*"Qu'a: Live at the Iridium, vol. 1 & 2" - Cecil Taylor, Harri Sjöström 1998
*"Algonquin", 1998
*"Incarnation", 1999
*"The Willisau Concert", 2000
*"Complicité", 2001
*"Taylor/Dixon/Oxley", 2002
*"Two T's for a Lovely T", 2003
*"The Owner of the River Bank", 2004

References

Futher Reading

* Jazz critic Howard Mandel interviews Taylor in "Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz", 2007, Routledge, ISBN 0415967147

External links

* [http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/mtaylors.html Discography of Cecil Taylor] , by Richard Shapiro
* [http://www.webmutations.com/ceciltaylor/ Cecil Taylor Online Sessionography]
* [http://www.fmp-label.de/freemusicproduction/musiker/taylor.html The FMP releases]
* [http://www.mattweston.com/cecilpanel.html The Shape of Jazz to Come] - A panel discussion on April 6 1964
* [http://openvault.wgbh.org/saybrother/MLA001037/index.html "Cecil Taylor interview"] for the WGBH series, [http://openvault.wgbh.org/series/Say+Brother/ Say Brother]
* [http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/funkhouser/ceciltaylor.html being matter ignited...] - Interviewed by Chris Funkhouser on September 3 1994
* [http://www.furious.com/PERFECT/ceciltaylor.html Cecil Taylor] - Interviewed by Jason Gross, January 2000
* [http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=1250 Mr. Taylor's Filibuster] - Interviewed by Kurt Gottschalk, March 11 2004
* [http://www.allaboutjazz.com/iviews/ctaylor2000.htm A Fireside Chat With Cecil Taylor] - Interviewed by Fred Jung
* [http://music.yahoo.com/ar-266592-bio--Cecil-Taylor Another Bio.] (originally from All Music Guide)