Jazz Articles about Cecil Taylor

Cecil Taylor: Garden 1st Set

by Mark Corroto
April 25, 2015

I dare you to put a Cecil Taylor record on the turntable (or press play on that download) and leave the room. You can't. His energy, mojo, or maybe voodoo is so strong, that your escape is impossible. It's as simple as that.Taylor is a force of nature. An irrepressible pianist, poet, philosopher jazzman. His performances are legendary, and this 1981 concert in Basel Switzerland is a gem. First released by Hat Hut Records (now hatOLOGY) in a ...

Cecil Taylor: FLY! FLY! FLY! FLY! FLY!

by John Kelman
October 14, 2012

83 years old and approaching ninety releases as a leader, pianist Cecil Taylor's place in the history of jazz may already rest assured, but he's more cited than seen these days. He may not come up as a primary influence as often as usual suspects Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner or Herbie Hancock, but in the free jazz realm there are few as distinctive or influential--and who've avoided the lure of compromise. Paul Bley comes close, but while the ...

Cecil Taylor: This Music is the Face of a Drum

by Robert Levin
August 8, 2010

[Editor's Note: This article first appeared in Jazz & Pop Magazine (April 1971)]As an artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin, Cecil Taylor has finally been able to realize a long-held ambition--the command of a large orchestra. Comprised of fifteen of his students (and augmented by Jimmy Lyons, Sam Rivers, Leroy Jenkins and Andrew Cyrille), the “Cecil Taylor Ensemble" recently played concerts at Wisconsin and at Dayton University in Ohio and it is scheduled to make ...

Cecil Taylor at the Take 3, 1962-'63

by Robert Levin
July 24, 2010

[Editor's Note: Excerpted and adapted from a work-in-progress, Going Outside: A Memoir of Free Jazz & the '60s] In the summer of 1962, Cecil lands a three-month, four-night-a-week gig at The Take 3, a coffee house on Bleecker Street. It's right next door to The Bitter End where Woody Allen had performed just weeks before. (Allen was second on the bill and I'd thrown him a quick couple of lines in the Village Voice column--something about how ...

The Primal Waters of Pure Consciousness: Cecil Taylor at Merkin Hall

by Eric Benson
April 8, 2009

Cecil TaylorMerkin Concert Hall New York, NY March 28, 2009 Cecil Taylor shuffled in from the wings with knitted tube socks pulled up over his sweatpants, ignored the Steinway grand that dominated centerstage, and began to read. A shapeless nurturer, distilled...Australopithecus, pebble culture...A convergence and continuum...Emerging lunar-tidal-circles...Primal waters of pure consciousness...Oblivious to a centimeter squared...CYMA, CYMA, C-Y-M-A

Cecil Taylor: CT: The Dance Project

by Marc Medwin
March 21, 2009

Since the late-'80s, the pioneering imprint FMP has released more of pianist Cecil Taylor's work than any other company, including the mammoth box set documenting his month-long 1988 residency in Berlin. CT: The Dance Project, recorded two years later, documents a performance of which this music was only one component. Bert Noglik's accompanying notes afford reminiscences of what occurred as dance and music merged on a July evening in 1990. The album is divided into two multi-part pieces; the dancers' ...

Cecil Taylor / William Parker / Masashi Harada: CT: The Dance Project

by Nic Jones
March 6, 2009

Well informed readers of this website will know that any piano-bass-drums trio involving Cecil Taylor is not going to consist of “correct" virtuosity applied to the maximum in pursuit of sophisticated cocktail lounge music. It doesn't happen here, but what does is a moment caught in time, representing three empathetic individuals in pursuit of the music in its deepest and yet most abstract form.

Duos and solos are integral parts of the overall performance as opposed to opportunities for self-indulgence, ...