Listening to Cecil Taylor is like listening to a hurricane, a great roaring Brahmsian hurricane of notes and relentless forward motion, a full-throated, full-hearted whirlwind of intensity, a ceaseless maelstrom of wonder, a profound hymn of lyrical power and ferocious glory. His performances are full of tiny crystalline jewels and huge billowing cataracts. He is an artist whose canvas is as big as the world, big as the universe maybe - terrific, terrifying, wondrous.

Cecil Taylor turns 69 this year, and he has been making this glorious music in its full force for well-nigh forty years, starting with a few startling and oblique Blue Note and Contemporary dates in the Fifties. He moved on to make some celebrated Candid recordings with Archie Shepp and the great bassist Buell Neidlinger in the early Sixties, and returned to Blue Note for the classics Unit Structures and Conquistador in 1966. These and others are distinguished by the august presence of alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, the real successor to Charlie Parker. Lyons' fleet post-bebop lines perfectly complemented the storm-center of Taylor's piano, such that he became the standard by which all of Taylor's later reed-playing sidemen are measured. Although Taylor was lightly regarded at the time - or considered a crank - and consequently got few opportunities to record, each recording alluded to here is a masterpiece. When he did get the chance, in other words, he made t! he most of it.

But that was just the beginning. Taylor's pieces got even longer and more furiously intense in the Seventies and Eighties. He and Lyons headed up a few recordings for the Swiss hat Hut label in those days that compare to his earlier work as oceans compare to rivers. It Is In the Brewing Luminous and One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye, in particular, capture music so monumental as to inspire awe. Taylor's music here (and elsewhere) is the music of creation, of brilliant galaxies spiraling into the eternal darkness, of the rage and roar of the elements crashing together and making worlds.

Along the way there are other, somewhat surprising landmarks. Taylor and a great pianist from an earlier generation, Mary Lou Williams, struck up a mutual admiration society and recorded an eye-opening two-piano disc, Embraced. With bebop-and-beyond drummer Max Roach Taylor recorded two powerful discs, records of what are justifiably entitled Historic Concerts. He recorded music for large ensembles, small groups, and solo music. He has even recorded percussion-laden discs of his chanted, sung, yowled poetry.

He is almost seventy, and still going strong. Although he has many imitators now, there is no one - no one - like him.

"Taylor's intensity still challenges us to live more thoroughly, to be more honest, individual, uncompromised. He still keeps the radical edge." -- Peter Watrous

Familiar with Cecil Taylor's work? We welcome your comments.