Cecil Taylor S+D

Anything with Jimmy Lyons on (most underrated sax player ever?) is also worth yr time and effort - 'Nefertiti, The Beautiful One Has Come', an awesome live alb recorded in the early 60s, was reissued by Revenant a few years ago, and 'It Is In The Brewing Luminous', an early 80s small club date w/ Lyons, and Alan Silva on bass, was put out on CD by HatArt a year or so ago. 'Unit Structures', a bigger band line-up w/ Lyons, Silva and Henry Grimes amongst others, is a 1966 Blue Note alb that should be fairly easy to get hold of. From roughly the same period, there's a wicked split alb on Impulse! w/ Roswell Rudd called 'Mixed' that includes tracks from Gil Evans' 'Into The Hot', where Taylor plays alongside Lyons and Archie Shepp. And if you can find it, 'The Jazz Composer's Orchestra' dbl alb features both Taylor and Pharoah Sanders on absolutely blistering form.

I'm totally clueless abt most of Taylor's 70s albs - there shld be a comprehensive reissue prog, goddamit! - and I've yet to dabble in any of his spoken word stuff, although the FMP collab alb w/ Derek Bailey - 'Pleistozaen Mit Wasser' - begins w/ CT burbling and gurgling away before he finally reaches the keyboard. That rec is part of a whole series of collaborative concerts that CT gave in Germany in 1988, each with different groupings of Europe's top free players.

Cecil taylor unit: It is in the brewing luminous.

The FMP label released 11 CDs (I think) of concerts that were performed in Berlin in '88. You can't buy the boxset but all (bar CD 001) are available. I have several of them and they are all worth getting. There are duos with Derek Bailey, Gunter Sommer, Tony Oxley, Paul Lovens, a trio with evan parker and a cello player (can't remember name). There is a solo set amongst this.

And I still got to hear the duo with han bennik and the 2CD set where he plays (after several days rehersal) with a 17-piece orchestra. I'm sure someone else will fill in the remanider.

It's just the start. Once you're in just watch the bank account dry up.

re: nefertiti, i picked up a LP for £6 called What's New, on Freedom. As far as I can see it's the same thing. is this true? it's a UK LP. I got the impression that nefertiti was super rare if ever released at all.

tell me about the spoken word stuff

The Leo alb 'Chinampas' is just Cecil reading his poetry, no piano.

Album on Leo called cinampas which is taylor on vocals and percussion. No piano. Never seen this BUT from his 'vocals' on the albums I do have then it must all gibberish instead of actual words. So get hold of it.

're: nefertiti, i picked up a LP for £6 called What's New, on Freedom. As far as I can see it's the same thing. is this true? it's a UK LP. I got the impression that nefertiti was super rare if ever released at all.'

Neferetti, 'the beautiful one has come' is a reissue. If it's the same then DAMN YOU. I pay £28 for my double CD (but i wonder whether your LP has all the material).

cecil possibly my alltime fave "avant gardist"

The Hans Bennik duet is very good (I love the name: "Spots, Circles and Fantasy"), not totally dissimilar to the Lovens but louder, more anarchic.

Yeah, I remeber you wrote an article abt him on the wire (think it had diamanda on the cover).

Since I've just acquired a job that pays me enough (though 'enough' is never enough heh heh) to buy this stuff I'm just going through buying records that are released by 'avant-gardists' so I wouldn't to say who is my favourite but cecil would be near the top.

That's jimmy lyons. I agree but jimmy is also on 'brewing luminous' but here he is much better, it's almost as if he caught up with Cecil. Great stuff.

And I haven't seen the Bennik duo. I must get it. I've heard stuff he's done with brotzmann. It's a riot.

or "Student Studies" aka "The Great Paris Concert" (so called on Black Lion), with a bonus Sam Rivers -- or "Conquistador" on Blue Note, really seductive, its "Unit Structures" less complex but sexy sibling

mid: the two New World Records recordings capture that "..swift" band in the studio before they had toured Europe. Since "..swift" is the last gig for the band that included Jacson, you'll have ideas developed from one extreme to the other by the same band within a year long period, a rare oppurtunity to see how CT material develops over the course of a bands run -- usually his recordings are one-off appearances for each line-up

the Leo albums are the least useful of his albums (except for seeing what Leroy Jenkins does)

a good orchestrated by CT is "Sliding Quadrants" on Soul Note -- a useful entry to smaller scaled compositions and a great band quite different to the Jackson stuff

remember the Jackson stuff is most atypical -- no other CT drummer took anything like that approach, so "..swift" is quite an odd-ball, but very good admittedly

later: Oxley/Taylor is my favourite FMP, and Double Holy House is as cruisy as Taylor will get solo but all the FMPs are good.

the double "Alms/ .." ia a bit obvious, but fun. Olu Iwa with Brotzman is also definitely fun as are the FMP trios and 4tets/6tets with Oxley, Parker, Guy and the Honsinger, Gayle et. al.

get them all, then you have a lifetime of speed of sound ploughing to look forward to

Trolls really should learn to be consistent. Or better still, fuck off.

WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE OF COURSE was to berate you for being ABLE to string one sentence together in colourful, vowel-free purlieus, bleeding with camouflage-annihilating oxsyteryxie oxleyTtime howdoesitPHeAL aware of cecily's ergoGnomics unreachBBBBBLE for ham method acKToER like archie shepp har har :-)

! i love this !

if i want it bad enough then i'll find the munny. (i'd love to mug someone so i could buy a cecil box set!!) but it seems way overpriced to me, and the prob (or is it?) with cecil is that it's had to get a review where i don't think that it's reflex "well everything he does is genius" one. i know he's a genius godammit!

am i broke? hmm. I've known broke-r supermarket-job student underachievers than me, so i guess i won't complain.

what sound-art box was this then?

''Henri Chopin's Revue OU: 5 x LPs of sound art from the likes of W. Burroughs, byron gysin, bob cobbing (there's abt 20 artists in total). Beautiful picture discs. If you have 65 quid then go and get this becuz its only a limited edition of 300 and it'll prob run out in a month.
the alternative is a 4 CD box set (material on 5 Lps) with a booklet (this didn't come with the LPs).

On the other hand there is a Henri chopin LP (an extra) with the 5. That doesn't come with the CDs.

I chose more music instaed of more info.''

''"hehehe.. i wish i had the money (well, i do)"
! i love this !''

well. that's the situation I'm in. I'd be happy to buy a 5 disc set (50 quid say) but since that isn't avaialble.

the promoters should tell us _now_ whether they're going to do what FMP did and issue them all as singles later anyway -- i figure the artists are above this game show retail business, so hopefully we'll find out the label are as like minded real soon

the i.t. boom, the cd boom, so many improv/azz releases in the last 8 years, have all been a little off-putting -- as were the FMP trio singles like ".. blazons"

i wish there were more CT holy house and totzil/mummers spoken-music albums (and less w.s.burroughs albums)

anyone able to justify 100 quid for the ten album ct/oxley/parker dates ?? (limited edition -- screw that, i've seen 4 or 5 limited editions of the hat/hut items now, except garden, which is deserving too) -- i don't find w.parker very interesting on celebrated/looking fmps

(oh, and i think one too many salty swift pt 2 (5 on disc one) is the best learning curve entry point for ct units)

I have to admit I don't love Cecil Taylor. In theory I do, he's an incredible technician. As far as what he plays, though, I think there are moments of brilliance, but it seems very European to me...no space...I have no idea what you'd call it.

He's one of those people I need to check out more thoroughly, like Braxton, so the above suggestions are very useful. Anyone care to offer an analysis of what he does that might help me appreciate it more, I'm sure I must be missing some key here...

well what he does has no central key heh...atonal jazz me thinks. for more: go to val vilmer's book on the subject (not too technical but it has a bit of it for sure).

fer chrissakes! he's european!!! come on...he's european and american and african etc etc...its a world music project in his hands.

x-post: sirone=> http://www.mindspring.com/~scala/sirone.htm

I really like 'artistry'.

Don't have all the FMPs but I'd say you should get one without a percussionist next. The one with parker and hosinger was really satisfying.

Wow, stence, that is very exciting. I will be there.

I own the 2 Ts For A Lovely T box. It's probably overpriced (especially when exchange rates - which were a lot better when I purchased it than they are now - and shipping to the US are factored in), but I've listened to it a lot, so I feel like I got my money's worth.

Did Cecil come out in his pajamas and bless the piano before he started playing? He did something like that both times I've seen him.

Yeah what was he writing?

http://www.sofamusic.no/musicians/tony_oxley.jpg

I thought the bassplayer would've been much better with a real standup. Even during his arco parts there didn't seem to be as many overtones as would be produced with a larger resonating body (altho some of the arco stuff kinda nicely sounded like the late Jimmy Lyons' sax stuff!).

Dunno what he was writing. I was hoping he'd recite a poem but no dice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxk-mK-uQsU

short one from 69 in Maeght too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKmhOO-0Kyw

i dremt cecil was scheduled to give me a piano lesson but we kept being interrupted before it began (which on waking i feel is for the best)

A doc I helped edit in its early stages is now up on YT. I remember meeting CT a couple of times during the process and he was a gracious, sweet man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atu8dab3atc

Sure, it's on YouTube now after I paid like $35 for a DVD of it last month.

I think the ‘Complete Return Concert’ could be my favorite Cecil release period

Can’t believe anyone who likes Taylor wouldn’t like his poetry. It’s an essential part of setting the mood and I always found his poetic introductions led fluidly into the music.

I’m a fan of it, and it’s something he worked very hard at. The original plan for the Bill Dixon/Cecil 1992 duos set was to release a 2CD box (both artists preferred CDs to vinyl) with a large folio containing Cecil’s poetry and Bill’s artwork. Obviously, that set didn’t materialize until decades later, and in a less elaborate presentation. But Cecil’s poetry was something he very much wanted highlighted in that package, something more than the typical liner-notes treatment his poetry had usually been given on his releases.

I know he published some poems in small literary magazines here and there, too. At various points he talked about publishing a book but never did obviously.

Unperson, is that new Taylor/Dixon record available legitimately as a download. All respect to Rob Young but his insistence on making these expensive physical objects is annoying.

Nope. $95 for the vinyl or nothing! I was amazed he was willing to send me MP3s so I could review it for The Wire, and even then they were vinyl rips. He's a fanatic.

what release are you talking about?

Might have to troll the dark web

what release are you talking about?

Sadly, I think this is where things are heading..

Ten years from now you’ll go to watch a movie at one of the few movie theaters left for like $100 a ticket

xp yeah okay i'm scratching my head here thinking ... who tf is rob young lol

actually, i'm still confused. what is the new taylor/dixon release?

OK, to clarify: Triple Point Records is a label run by Ben Young, longtime WKCR employee (no longer there, I don't think) and author of the "bio-discography" book Dixonia (a very valuable resource if you're super into Bill Dixon and his role in the 1960s NYC out jazz scene in particular).

Duets 1992 is a double LP of studio duos between Cecil Taylor and Bill Dixon, recorded in France in 1992 and never released at the time. It came out on Triple Point in 2019 after much delay (I saw the cover art at the Whitney exhibition dedicated to Taylor in 2016) and sells for $95 plus shipping. Vinyl only, no digital (you don't even get a download with your purchase). The music is amazing and deserves to be much more widely available, but whatcha gonna do.

OK, i knew all those things but to be clear the post was referring to a "new" release put out by somebody named rob young so pardon my confusion

i appreciate the breakdown though, since folks may follow the thread and not know and i don't want the free jazz threads here to be cryptic or insular

i appreciate the breakdown though, since folks may follow the thread and not know and i don't want the free jazz threads here to be cryptic or insular

My feeling exactly. And to be clear, the reason this discussion cropped up is because I wrote in my Substack newsletter about a Cecil/Bill concert that I spotted on YouTube this weekend, which was the day before the studio recording session. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVc3qMW1fSY

There’s pro-shot video of both that and their performance in Verona.

I probably posted this before, and it’s mentioned in the liner notes of the Triple Point set, but the original plan in 1992 was for a 2CD box (Bill and Cecil preferred CDs to vinyl) with a book of Bill’s artwork and Cecil’s poetry. Unsurprisingly, no label wanted to release it at the time, at least not on the artists’ terms. It would’ve been incredible if the eventual release was what was originally intended, with the addition of a DVD of the filmed performances, and maybe contemporary reviews of those shows (Bill and Cecil were on the cover of France’s Jazz Hot that summer, and that photo was used in the artwork unperson saw at the Whitney).

As irritatingly cumbersome, pricey, and gatekeepy as the Triple Point set is, at least it has the full backing and approval of the artists’ estates, and that the direct representatives of those estates are being compensated fairly.

my only musical controp is that Love For Sale is one of his best albums

not controversial in my household

I'll try and make it more controp by stating it his best then! Been reading the Thelonious Monk book and was amused that Cecil was initially barred from the Five Spot for breaking an already fragile and dilapidated piano. I love this guy so much.

RDG Kelley's book? i still need to read it, sadly

yeah, it's a tremendous read. I'm taking it slowly and listening to stuff referenced in it. It has taught me a few things and is so good.

Thought this revive would be for unperson's Cecil Taylor book, when's that out?

Not sure yet. Publisher's working on it. I just sent them back cover copy and an author photo today, in fact! I've seen a preliminary page layout, and I know they're talking to the folks at FMP and the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt about including some photos. They're also designing the cover using a painting I sent them. It'll definitely be out this year, though.

Ooooh

I’ve been bumping “calling it the eighth” lately.

i don't think Love is for Sale is my favorite album of his but it's *definitely* my favorite of his album covers

Recently spent a day at the Met museum with my headphones on, selecting music to pair with each group of painting and I chose Air Above Mountains for the Cezannes. Pretty clear resonance imo with their interest in 'underlying architecture' and constructing forms out of individual units. Wondering if Cecil Taylor has ever spoken about any direct influence from visual art or architecture

Wondering if Cecil Taylor has ever spoken about any direct influence from visual art or architecture

Yeah, he was a huge admirer of architect Santiago Calatrava's bridges and other structures; he talked about it many times.

He was a big art and architecture lover. Dantiago Calatrava gets a shoutout early on in the documentary “All The Notes”.

lol unperson beat me to it!

Nice, i should check out that doc.

If there's a print interview online where he talks about it that you know of please lmk!

Yeah, he was a huge admirer of architect Santiago Calatrava's bridges and other structures; he talked about it many times.

I didn't know that, but it actually makes a lot of sense.

freely available on youtube
it's the opening shot lol

you can check this out if you're looking for a print source rather than video:

http://www.furious.com/perfect/ceciltaylor.html

both Miles and Cecil were poshboys compared to Monk who was an autodidact born into struggle and struggled even when he was famous, and there is a fair bit of needle between Monk and Miles. Probably not all down to class resentment but more pride and the clashing out of control egos. But no surprise that Cecil was an urbane intellectual type, given his background. Not that it made life any easier being black in the US at the time.

But no surprise that Cecil was an urbane intellectual type, given his background. Not that it made life any easier being black in the US at the time.

Yeah, I deal with this a little bit in the book, the fact (often unremarked-upon by critics) that Taylor was absolutely a scion of the early 20th century Black upper middle class, if not the Black aristocracy of the era; he says in an interview I quoted that his father had the only brick house on their block, and his (Cecil's) name appeared in the society columns of local newspapers when he was a kid — the family seems to have come through the Great Depression entirely unscathed, and some relatives on his father's side lived in a gigantic manor house near Boston (part of the reason he wound up at New England Conservatory, I think).

I just realized despite the fact I love him so much I have no idea about Taylor’s background. Looking forward to the book, etc.

most of what i know is from the A.B. Spellman book, which i highly recommend!

https://press.umich.edu/Books/F/Four-Jazz-Lives2

thanks budo jeru! i think his intro in the doc was more interesting, if only because he took me by surprise when he referred to bridges as a time-based form

stumbled onto this a while ago and most of what i know about him is from here:
https://unitstructures.commons.gc.cuny.edu/abstracts/

no problem. i don't get asked every day if i can recommend a print source for Cecil Taylor's thoughts on Calatrava, but when it does happen i'm ready

haha, does the Institute of Jazz Studies need a reference librarian?

Yeah, thanks for that link budo jeru.

of tangential interest: this blog posted an audio recording of an interview with chantal d'arcy from 1963, who started Shandar records in Paris in the early '70s with encouragement from CT, and also issued recordings by Taylor, as well as Sun Ra, Terry Riley, Pran Nath, and others:

https://blogthehum.com/2017/04/02/a-rare-wonderful-and-insightful-interview-with-chantal-darcy-founder-of-shandar-records-from-may-23-1973/