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Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929 – April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet.
Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvisation often involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been compared to percussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase "eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's style. He has been referred to as "Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings".
Cecil Percival Taylor was born on March 25, 1929, in Long Island City, Queens, and raised in Corona, Queens. 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 the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory in Boston. At the New England Conservatory, Taylor majored in popular music arrangement. During his time there, he also became familiar with contemporary European art music. Bela Bartók and Karlheinz Stockhausen notably influenced his music.
In 1955, Taylor moved back to New York City from Boston. He formed a quartet with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles. Taylor's first recording, Jazz Advance, featured Lacy and was released in 1956. The recording is described by Richard Cook and Brian 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 in which the pianist would later immerse himself." Taylor's quartet featuring Lacy also appeared at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, which was made into the album At Newport. Taylor collaborated with saxophonist John Coltrane in 1958 on Stereo Drive, now available as Coltrane Time.
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. His 1959 LP record Looking 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.
Landmark recordings, such as Unit Structures (1966), also appeared. Within the Cecil 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 uncredited Albert Ayler worked with Taylor, jamming and appearing on at least one recording, Four, which was unreleased until appearing on the 2004 Ayler box set Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962–70).
By 1961, Taylor was working regularly with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, who would become one of his most important and consistent collaborators. Taylor, Lyons, and drummer Sunny Murray (and later Andrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of the Cecil Taylor Unit, Taylor's primary ensemble until Lyons' death in 1986. Lyons' playing, strongly influenced by jazz icon Charlie Parker, retained a strong blues sensibility and helped keep Taylor's increasingly avant garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.
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) in De Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam on July 1, 1967. Two days earlier, Taylor had played the same composition in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Many of his later concerts were released on album and include Indent (1973), side one of Spring of Two Blue-J's (1973), Silent Tongues (1974), Garden (1982), For Olim (1987), Erzulie Maketh Scent (1989), and The Tree of Life (1998). He began to garner critical and popular acclaim, playing for Jimmy Carter on the White House Lawn, lecturing as an artist-in-residence at universities, and eventually being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973.
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Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929 – April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet.
Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvisation often involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been compared to percussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase "eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's style. He has been referred to as "Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings".
Cecil Percival Taylor was born on March 25, 1929, in Long Island City, Queens, and raised in Corona, Queens. 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 the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory in Boston. At the New England Conservatory, Taylor majored in popular music arrangement. During his time there, he also became familiar with contemporary European art music. Bela Bartók and Karlheinz Stockhausen notably influenced his music.
In 1955, Taylor moved back to New York City from Boston. He formed a quartet with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles. Taylor's first recording, Jazz Advance, featured Lacy and was released in 1956. The recording is described by Richard Cook and Brian 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 in which the pianist would later immerse himself." Taylor's quartet featuring Lacy also appeared at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, which was made into the album At Newport. Taylor collaborated with saxophonist John Coltrane in 1958 on Stereo Drive, now available as Coltrane Time.
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. His 1959 LP record Looking 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.
Landmark recordings, such as Unit Structures (1966), also appeared. Within the Cecil 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 uncredited Albert Ayler worked with Taylor, jamming and appearing on at least one recording, Four, which was unreleased until appearing on the 2004 Ayler box set Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962–70).
By 1961, Taylor was working regularly with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, who would become one of his most important and consistent collaborators. Taylor, Lyons, and drummer Sunny Murray (and later Andrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of the Cecil Taylor Unit, Taylor's primary ensemble until Lyons' death in 1986. Lyons' playing, strongly influenced by jazz icon Charlie Parker, retained a strong blues sensibility and helped keep Taylor's increasingly avant garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.
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) in De Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam on July 1, 1967. Two days earlier, Taylor had played the same composition in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Many of his later concerts were released on album and include Indent (1973), side one of Spring of Two Blue-J's (1973), Silent Tongues (1974), Garden (1982), For Olim (1987), Erzulie Maketh Scent (1989), and The Tree of Life (1998). He began to garner critical and popular acclaim, playing for Jimmy Carter on the White House Lawn, lecturing as an artist-in-residence at universities, and eventually being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973.