Results for "Cecil Taylor"

Cecil Taylor

Born: March 25, 1929

"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

"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. You ask, without logic, where does the form come from? It seems something that may be forgotten is that as we begin our day and proceed through it there is a form in existence that we create out of, that the day and night itself is for. And what we choose to vary in the daily routine provides in itself the fresh building blocks to construct a living form which is easily translated into a specific act of making a musical composition." - Cecil Taylor

Flashing Spirits

By Cecil Taylor

Label: Burning Ambulance Music
Released: 2025
Track listing: Flashing Spirits; Encore 1; Encore 2 (Stone).

Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts

By Cecil Taylor

Label: Elemental Music
Released: 2026
Track listing: Side A: Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington, Evening Set Version, Part 1; Side B: Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington, Evening Set Version, Part 2; Side C: Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington, Afternoon Set Version, Part 1; Side D: Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington, Afternoon Set Version, Part 2; Side E: Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington, Afternoon Set Version, Part 1; Side F: Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington, Afternoon Set Version, Part 2.

At Iridium 2004

By Cecil Taylor Orchestra Humane

Label: Burning Ambulance Music
Released: 2026
Track listing: March 23, 2004 (Set 1); March 23, 2004 (Set 2); March 24, 2004 (Set 1); March 24, 2004 (Set 2); March 25, 2004 (Set 1); March 25, 2004 (Set 2); March 26, 2004 (Set 1); March 26, 2004 (Set 2); March 26, 2004 (Set 3); March 27, 2004 (Set 1); March 27, 2004 (Set 2); March 27, 2004 (Set 3); March 28, 2004 (Set 1); March 28, 2004 (Set 2).

Julius Hemphill: Marty Ehrlich and Tim Berne Remember a Musical Visionary

by Dave Kaufman
September 20, 2026

Julius Hemphill, a brilliant alto saxophonist and extraordinary composer, was a towering figure in avant-garde jazz and creative music. Yet his body of work remains surprisingly little known, even among aficionados of this sort of adventurous music. Hemphill's music demonstrated a deep feeling for the blues and other African American traditions. His creative vision extended well ...

New Music from Dennis Mitcheltree, Michael Sarian, Kelly Green, And More

by Bob Osborne
September 17, 2026

On this edition we have a selection of new releases from a wide variety of jazz stylings together with a classic live recording of Cecil Taylor from 1962.Playlist Dennis Mitcheltree “911" from Seeing Red (Dengor Music) 00:00 Michael Sarian “The Eyes of Parajanov" from In This Desert (Burning Ambulance Music) 07:09 Kelly Green “Tongue ...

Tommy Muellner: Solitary Moon

by Mark Corroto
September 15, 2026

Today's hipster jazz musicians do not play standards. Perhaps “poseur" is a better description for artists who deliberately eschew classic compositions. Yet standards and familiar songs serve an important purpose in jazz: they provide a shared musical language, a lingua franca through which musicians communicate and listeners can measure the quality of an interpretation. Maybe, just ...

Irene Schweizer: Piano Solo: Prelude To A Kiss And More

by Mark Corroto
September 8, 2026

It might be a touch of hyperbole to say the world wasn't ready for Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer's 1986 recording Piano Solo: Prelude To A Kiss And More. Yet listening to it some 40 years later, that may well be your first thought. Schweizer (1941--2024) had already established herself as a formidable improviser through recordings such ...

Charlie Haden: Anatomy of a Jazz Classic

by John Ephland
August 31, 2026

It was a phoner from the suburban Chicago offices of DownBeat to bassist Charlie Haden in L.A. Our talk, which was held on September 15, 1991, was periodically interrupted by his needing to say, “Hold on one second." The occasion? The 30th anniversary of the release of saxophonist Ornette Coleman's groundbreaking LP Free Jazz: A Collective ...

Charles Downs: Inner

by Don Ball
August 20, 2026

It has been a long time coming for Charles Downs' debut recording as a leader. He began his career in the 1970s playing as Rashid Bakr with the likes of Cecil Taylor, Jemeel Moondoc, William Parker and others before reverting to his birth name in the new century. Since then, he has performed as part of ...