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Cecil Taylor: Courage in Creation
by Nick Catalano
Ever since innovative artists were faced with reflecting and reacting in their art to seismic events (WWI) revolutionary science (Einsteinian relativity, Darwinian evolution, and political convolution (fascism, bolshevism) over a century ago, many faced years of scorn and condemnation. When they chose abstraction in art (Mondrian, Kandinsky) dissonance in music (Schoenberg, Bartok) or stream of consciousness in writing (Eliot, Joyce) to describe a disjunctive new world they were destined to lose the masses and rely on clairvoyant critics for small ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor Live in Padua, 1975
by Centro d'Arte Padova
For our first contribution to All About Jazz's Mixcloud column, we celebrate the musical genius, free spirit and unbounded creativity of Cecil Taylor. We decided to start with one of the gems from our vaults: a historic recording of his first (and only) concert in Padua, Italy, in 1975. Listen to twenty five minutes of breathtaking musical inventions! This installment is part of “From the Archive," a series curated by Centro d'Arte Padova that will present unreleased excerpts ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: 1929-2018
by Karl Ackermann
As he approached the age of ninety, Cecil Taylor could be excused for some of his indulgences. Still highly opinionated on a range of subjects; still chain smoking, still harboring old resentments, and so on. For a man from whom new ideas sprang constantly and effortlessly, Taylor could get stuck in real-world dramas. He had a patriarchal legacy that held him above the everyday judgments of other mortals; he was a founding father of free jazz, a co-founder of the ...
Continue ReadingIntervista a Stefano Zenni, direttore artistico di Metastasio Jazz
by Neri Pollastri
Storico del jazz e musicologo tra i più apprezzati del nostro paese, docente nei conservatori, brillante conferenziere, collaboratore di Radio Rai, autore di libri fondamentali come Storia del Jazz. Una prospettiva globale (Stampa Alternativa, 2012) e Che razza di musica. Jazz, blues, soul e le trappole del colore (EDT, 2016), Stefano Zenni è da molti anni Direttore Artistico di Metastasio Jazz, rassegna invernale che si svolge a Prato. Lo abbiamo intervistato nel corso del festival di quest'anno per farci raccontare ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Live In The Black Forest
by Karl Ackermann
A retrospective look at the sixty-year career of Cecil Taylor, in progress at the Whitney Museum of American Art, incorporates the museum's unobstructed spaces and impressive views of New York City with multimedia documentation of the great composer/pianist's sixty years of creative invention. That openness is emblematic of Taylor's own absence of artistic boundaries. He has worked with dancers, poets, filmmakers and playwrights all while creating the most innovative avant-garde music that modern jazz has to offer. Throughout his career ...
Continue ReadingSolitudini pianistiche in casa Hat
by Alberto Bazzurro
Una gran bella infornata di album editi nel giro di pochi mesi dalla HatOlogy ci consente una quanto mai istruttiva panoramica su una delle formule più classiche del jazz (e del resto non solo di quello) come il pianoforte solo. Con qualche disseppellimento degno di particolare attenzione. Cecil Taylor Garden 1st Set HatOlogy Valutazione: * * * * ½ Ci riferiamo, in questo senso, ai due volumi (separati) che mettono ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Garden 2nd Set
by Glenn Astarita
Years after this 1981 performance at a Swiss venue, pianist Cecil Taylor advised producer Werner X Uehlinger that this was his best solo concert, as the 2nd Set chronicles the order of performance and follows up the 2015 reissue of Garden 1st Set (hatOLOGY, 2015). And to cite the often-used movie critic adjective, this concert was truly riveting. Taylor performs on a 92-key Bosendorfer piano, providing extra bass keys to bottom F. Taylor proffers a detailed soundstage amid ...
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