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CD |
| 5.651 Ft
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| 1. | Number One
Take 1
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| 2. | Number One
Take 2
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| 3. | Air
Take 9
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| 4. | Air
Take 21
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| 5. | Air
Take 24
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| 6. | Port of Call
Take 3
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Jazz / Free Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz, Jazz Instrument, Piano Jazz
Recorded: Oct 12-13, 1960, Nola's Penthouse Studios, New York
Cecil Taylor - piano
Archie Shepp - tenor saxophone
Buell Neidlinger - bass
Dennis Charles - drums
Sunny Murray - drums
Cecil Taylor's style is unique, with an awesome authority that has remained with him to the present day. He is now a stylistic leader and his playing has proved to be the inspiration behind almost two generations of pianists, as well as to musicians on a wide range of other instruments.
His colleagues here (Archie Shepp on tenor saxophone, Buell Neidlinger on bass, Sunny Murray and Dennis Charles on drums) respond to the strength of his music.
This is another good, contrapuntal performance for Taylor, Neidlinger and Charles. This really is jazz in the making. The listener can almost sense the wheels going round, hear the creative build up its raw form and gets a warts and all look at true art music.
Includes liner notes by Barry McRae.
From the opening patterns of Denis Charles' drums on the title cut, the listener knows he/she is in for something special. One can only imagine what the reaction of the average jazz fan was in 1960 when this session was recorded. This is a wonderful document from early in Taylor's career, when he was midway between modernist approaches to standard material and his own radical experiments that would come to full fruition a few years hence. The quartet, rounded out by the youthful Archie Shepp (playing only on "Air" and "Lazy Afternoon") and bassist Buell Neidlinger, is already quite comfortable at pushing the boundaries of the period, giving an almost cursory reading of the themes before leaping into improvisation. The standard "This Nearly Was Mine" is explored gorgeously and with strong romanticism by Taylor, giving perhaps an indication of the source of the brief, blissful encores he would offer up to end his solo concerts in coming decades. "Port of Call" and "Eb" are both utter masterpieces showing Taylor already maintaining an unheard of mastery of the piano, musical ideas darting like sparks from his fingertips. What's extra amazing is how deeply entrenched the blues feel and pulse are in this music, already bound for the further reaches of abstraction. They never left Taylor, although many listeners have difficulty discerning them. This session, which has been released under numerous guises, is an especially fine introduction to his work, keeping enough of a foot in "traditional" jazz forms to offer one purchase while dangling breathtaking visions of the possible within one's reach. A classic recording that belongs in anyone's collection. ~ Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide
Cecil Taylor
Active Decades: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: Mar 25, 1929 in Long Island, NY
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Spoken Word, Modern Creative, Poetry, Free Jazz, Progressive Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Improvisation, Jazz Instrument, Piano Jazz
Soon after he first emerged in the mid-'50s, pianist Cecil Taylor was the most advanced improviser in jazz; five decades later he is still the most radical. Although in his early days he used some standards as vehicles for improvisation, since the early '60s Taylor has stuck exclusively to originals. To simplify describing his style, one could say that Taylor's intense atonal percussive approach involves playing the piano as if it were a set of drums. He generally emphasizes dense clusters of sound played with remarkable technique and endurance, often during marathon performances. Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music is not for everyone.
Taylor started piano lessons from the age of six, and attended the New York College of Music and the New England Conservatory. Taylor's early influences included Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, but from the start he sounded original. Early gigs included work with groups led by Johnny Hodges and Hot Lips Page, but, after forming his quartet in the mid-'50s (which originally included Steve Lacy on soprano, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles), Taylor was never a sideman again. The group played at the Five Spot Cafe in 1956 for six weeks and performed at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival (which was recorded by Verve), but, despite occasional records, work was scarce. In 1960, Taylor recorded extensively for Candid under Neidlinger's name (by then the quartet featured Archie Shepp on tenor) and the following year he sometimes substituted in the play The Connection. By 1962, Taylor's quartet featured his longtime associate Jimmy Lyons on alto and drummer Sunny Murray. He spent six months in Europe (Albert Ayler worked with Taylor's group for a time although no recordings resulted) but upon his return to the U.S., Taylor did not work again for almost a year. Even with the rise of free jazz, his music was considered too advanced. In 1964, Taylor was one of the founders of the Jazz Composer's Guild and, in 1968, he was featured on a record by the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. In the mid-'60s, Taylor recorded two very advanced sets for Blue Note but it was generally a lean decade.
Things greatly improved starting in the 1970s. Taylor taught for a time at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Antioch College, and Glassboro State College, he recorded more frequently with his Unit, and European tours became common. After being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973, the pianist's financial difficulties were eased a bit; he even performed at the White House (during Jimmy Carter's administration) in 1979. A piano duet concert with Mary Lou Williams was a fiasco but a collaboration with drummer Max Roach was quite successful. Taylor started incorporating some of his eccentric poetry into his performances and, unlike most musicians, he has not mellowed with age. The death of Jimmy Lyons in 1986 was a major blow, but Cecil Taylor has remained quite active up until the present day, never compromising his musical vision. His forbidding music is still decades ahead of its time.
---Scott Yanow, All Music Guide |
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