Jazz Articles about Cecil Taylor

About Cecil Taylor

Album Review

Albert Ayler: More Lost Performances Revisited

Read "More Lost Performances Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
November 15, 2023

A state-of-the-art sonic restoration of obscure but historically important Albert Ayler material by Switzerland's ezz-thetics label, which with its parent label, Hat Hut, has been creating an audiophile archive of Ayler recordings with the support of his estate since 1978. All too often, “more" in an album title means “Beware: barrel scraping in progress." Not in this case. More Lost Performances Revisited is primetime Ayler. The disc draws from three sources over a five-year timespan. The earliest ...

Radio & Podcasts

Cecil Taylor, Ellington Seattle Concert, Aretha Franklin

by David Brown
March 28, 2023

This week on the Jazz Continuum, we celebrate the birthday of Aretha Franklin with her music and Franklin covers by Philly organist Jimmy McGriff. We'll continue with a musical tribute to Cecil Taylor, one of the most uncompromisingly gifted pianists in jazz history who was born on this day in 1929. We'll be spinning from Taylor's discography, both early works and key, influential recordings. Then, we'll visit the Duke Ellington orchestra performing in Seattle, on this day in 1952, when ...

Reassessing

Momentum Space

by Dan McClenaghan
December 27, 2022

Momentum Space was released in 1999 on Verve Records. Considering the players--saxophonist Dewey Redman, pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Elvin Jones--the album didn't make much of a splash. Reviews were mixed, leaning toward the dismissive. Taylor was 70 at the time. Jones was in his early 70s and saxman Redman was in his late 60s. Taylor was widely considered a genius of free jazz, or a madman who was going out there on the bandstand and jiving us--the ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: With (Exit) To Student Studies Revisited

Read "With (Exit) To Student Studies Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 16, 2022

Documenting the evolution of Cecil Taylor is an undertaking that is way beyond the pay grade of most listeners. Just as in the study of homo sapiens (yes, us) where there is no critical moment (the missing link) that we can definitely pinpoint where our ancestors established language, art and importantly, abstract thought, Taylor's music can be thought of in similar terms. Obviously his approach didn't emerge fully formed. Or did it? No, that is an irrational thought, but a ...

Radio & Podcasts

Town Hall: Satchmo to Cecil

by David Brown
March 8, 2022

I picked up a Blue Note box set titled One Night with Blue Note Preserved. It contains a concert presented at Town Hall, NYC in February of 1985 which relaunched the historic label after years of dormancy. Tonight, in addition to selections from this concert—Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner and others—we'll explore other live recordings from Town Hall. Artists include: Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Nina Simone, Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, Sara Vaughn, Cecil Taylor and others. Playlist ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert

Read "The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
January 20, 2022

If the title alone The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert doesn't blow out those flu-like post-holiday cobwebs in a big hurry, the full, near ninety minute assault on all that was and is holy damn well will. Couple the jittery anticipation of NYC's Town Hall audience pushing up against the cool onstage élan of alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, percussionist Andrew Cyrille and bassist Sirone aka Norris Jones and the air in the hall is highly, nervously charged, all of them ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited

Read "Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 22, 2021

This story has been revisited before, in the context of an Albert Ayler review, but good stories bear repeating, particularly when they are instructive ones. So here it is again... During a May 2021 interview with All About Jazz, the reed player Shabaka Hutchings was asked to name six albums which had made a more than usually deep impression on him. One of those Hutchings chose was Cecil Taylor's Silent Tongues: Live At Montreux '74 (Freedom, 1975). “This ...