Results for "Cecil Taylor"
Cecil Taylor

"One of my wishes has been realized. I found love. It was difficult, but I found it. Because when Billy Holiday sang, “You don‘t know what love is,” great singers will tell you… it‘s a partnership. It‘s a sharing"....—-Cecil Taylor November 10, 2010 "Practice, to be studious at the instrument, as well as looking at a bridge, or dancing, or writing a poem, or reading, or attempting to make your home more beautiful. What goes into an improvisation is what goes into one's preparation, then allowing the prepared senses to execute at the highest level devoid of psychological or logical interference
Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker

Universal Tonality: The Life And Music Of William Parker Cisco Bradley 384 Pages ISBN: # 978147801014 Duke University Press 2021 Who is William Parker? He is a jazz bassist, yes. But he is also a band leader, composer, writer & poet, community organizer, peace activist, and cultural anthropologist. Cisco ...
Ten Tiptop Albums Which Include Thelonious Monk & Denzil Best’s Totally Rocking “Bemsha Swing”

That was the opinion expressed in Inside Jazz by its author, Leonard Feather, who, on the front cover of the book's first edition in 1949 was described as America's No.1 Authority On Be-Bop." Well, at least Feather was half right about the attractive tunes. In fact, Monk is known to have written at least eighty of ...
Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe / Four Men Only: Complete Recordings

It's not often that something comes along which upends accepted wisdom, but that's what the Lithuanian NoBusiness imprint has accomplished with the reissue of four albums in a three-CD box set by the now unremembered Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe (MJQK) and its successor FourMenOnly (FMO). The group, comprised of Herbert Joos, reedman Wilfried ...
Geof Bradfield, Ben Goldberg, Dana Hall Trio: General Semantics

A fortuitous meeting between veteran clarinetist Ben Goldberg and two up-and-coming stalwarts of the Chicago creative jazz scene, saxophonist Geof Bradfield and drummer Dana Hall, General Semantics is a tribute to the power of spontaneous interaction among like-minded musicians. Although Bradfield and Hall have worked together extensively since Bradfield's quintet album Our Roots (Origin Records, 2015), ...
Albert Ayler: Albert Ayler 1965: Spirits Rejoice & Bells Revisited

Being that 2020 is more than half a century since Albert Ayler (1936-70) recorded this music, the best way to approach might be through what the Zen Buddhists call Shoshin. Roughly translated as beginner's mind," or the ability to experience things as if for the first time. Since we cannot transport ourselves back to 1965, taking ...
Marco Rottoli: New Year's Eve

Nothing earth shattering, surely, but a very fine listen nonetheless. New Year's Eve, young Italian bassist and composer Marco Rottoli's debut, serves two truly noteworthy goals: First, as a promising warmup to more adventurous things from the trio itself in the future and, secondly, as a good opening ensemble readying you for the evening's anticipated headliner. ...
The Volcanic World Of Pyroclastic Records

As listeners we so often typecast musicians and music labels. Artists are pigeonholed into silos: classical, jazz, rock, blues, pop, etc.. Go into any record store (if you can find a brick & mortar one) and this segregation, a forced separation, is also evident. Even streaming services are divided in this manner. Maybe it is just ...
Michael Cuscuna: In The Vault Playing God

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in December 2000. Michael Cuscuna is one of the most important figures in the jazz reissue field today. He has been responsible for hundreds of releases for many companies, and he was fortunate to meet and befriend Alfred Lion during the final ...
Alexander von Schlippenbach: Slow Pieces For Aki: Piano Solo

Pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach began recording in the 1950s. Twenty years into the new millennium, he continues to do so prolifically, with twenty-five albums under his own name listed on Wikipedia--a seeming short shrift; his three solo albums on the Intakt Records label from 2005 and 2012 somehow didn't make the list, suggesting there are more. ...