Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929 – April 5,

2018)[1][2][3] was an American pianist and poet.[4][5] Cecil Taylor

Taylor was classically trained and was one of the

pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an
energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex
improvisation often involving tone clusters and
intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been
compared to percussion. Referring to the number of
keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase Taylor at Moers Festival 2008
"eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's style.[6] Background information
He has been referred to as "Art Tatum with
Birth name Cecil Percival Taylor
contemporary-classical leanings".[7]
Born March 25, 1929
Long Island City, New York,
U.S.
Early life and education
Died April 5, 2018 (aged 89)
Cecil Percival Taylor was born on March 25, 1929, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Long Island City, Queens,[8] and raised in Corona, Genres Jazz, avant-garde jazz, free
Queens.[9] As an only child to a middle-class family, jazz, free improvisation
Taylor's mother Almeda Ragland Taylor encouraged Occupation(s) Musician, bandleader,
him to play music at an early age. He began playing composer, improviser, poet
piano at age six and went on to study at the New York
Instrument Piano
College of Music and New England Conservatory in
Boston. At the New England Conservatory, Taylor Years active 1956–2018
majored in popular music arrangement. During his Labels Transition, Blue Note,
time there, he also became familiar with contemporary Freedom, Hathut, Enja, FMP
European art music. Bela Bartók and Karlheinz
Stockhausen notably influenced his music.[10]

In 1955, Taylor moved back to New York City from Boston. He formed a quartet with soprano
saxophonist Steve Lacy, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles.[10] Taylor's first
recording, Jazz Advance, featured Lacy and was released in 1956.[11] The recording is described by
Richard Cook and Brian Morton in the Penguin Guide to Jazz: "While there are still many nods to
conventional post-bop form in this set, it already points to the freedoms in which the pianist would later
immerse himself."[12] Taylor's quartet featuring Lacy also appeared at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival,
which was made into the album At Newport.[13] Taylor collaborated with saxophonist John Coltrane in
1958 on Stereo Drive, now available as Coltrane Time.[14]

1950s and early 1960s

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taylor's music grew more complex and moved away from existing jazz
styles. Gigs were often hard to come by, and club owners found that Taylor's approach of playing long
pieces tended to impede business.[15] His 1959 LP record Looking Ahead! showcased his innovation as a
creator as compared to the jazz mainstream. Unlike others at the time, Taylor utilized virtuosic techniques
and made swift stylistic shifts from phrase to phrase. These qualities, among others, still remained notable
distinctions of his music for the rest of his life.[16]

Landmark recordings, such as Unit Structures (1966), also appeared. Within the Cecil Taylor Unit (a
distinction that was often used at performances and recordings between 1962 and 2006 for a shifting
group of sidemen), musicians were able to develop new forms of conversational interplay. In the early
1960s, an uncredited Albert Ayler worked with Taylor, jamming and appearing on at least one recording,
Four, which was unreleased until appearing on the 2004 Ayler box set Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued
Recordings (1962–70).[17]

By 1961, Taylor was working regularly with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, who would become one of
his most important and consistent collaborators. Taylor, Lyons, and drummer Sunny Murray (and later
Andrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of the Cecil Taylor Unit, Taylor's primary ensemble until
Lyons' death in 1986. Lyons' playing, strongly influenced by jazz icon Charlie Parker, retained a strong
blues sensibility and helped keep Taylor's increasingly avant garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.[18]

Late 1960s and 1970s

Taylor began to perform solo concerts in the latter half of the 1960s. The first known recorded solo
performance was "Carmen With Rings" (59 minutes) in De Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam on July 1,
1967. Two days earlier, Taylor had played the same composition in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
Many of his later concerts were released on album and include Indent (1973), side one of Spring of Two
Blue-J's (1973), Silent Tongues (1974), Garden (1982), For Olim (1987), Erzulie Maketh Scent (1989),
and The Tree of Life (1998).[19] He began to garner critical and popular acclaim, playing for Jimmy Carter
on the White House Lawn,[20] lecturing as an artist-in-residence at universities, and eventually being
awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973.[21]
In 1976, Taylor directed a production of Adrienne Kennedy's A Rat's Mass at La MaMa Experimental
Theatre Club in the East Village of Manhattan. His production combined the original script with a chorus
of orchestrated voices used as instruments. Jimmy Lyons, Rashid Bakr, Andy Bey, Karen Borca, David S.
Ware, and Raphe Malik performed in the production as the Cecil Taylor Unit, among other musicians and
actors.[22]

1980s, 1990s, and the Feel Trio

Following Lyons' death in 1986, Taylor formed the Feel Trio in the late 1980s with William Parker on
bass and Tony Oxley on drums. The group can be heard on Celebrated Blazons, Looking (Berlin Version)
The Feel Trio and the 10-disc set 2 Ts for a Lovely T.[23][24][25] Compared to his prior groups with Lyons,
the Feel Trio had a more abstract approach, tethered less to jazz tradition and more aligned with the ethos
of European free improvisation. He also performed with larger ensembles and big band projects.

Taylor's extended residence in Berlin in 1988 was documented by the German label FMP, resulting in a
box set of performances in duet and trio with a large number of European free improvisors, including
Oxley, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, Tristan Honsinger, Louis Moholo, and Paul Lovens.
Most of his later recordings have been released on European labels, with the exception of Momentum
Space (a meeting with Dewey Redman and Elvin Jones) on Verve/Gitanes. The classical label Bridge
released his 1998 Library of Congress performance Algonquin, a duet with violinist Mat Maneri.[26]

Taylor continued to perform for capacity audiences around the world with live concerts, usually playing
his favored instrument, a Bösendorfer piano featuring nine extra lower-register keys. In 1987, he toured
England with Australian pianist Roger Woodward, presenting recitals on which Woodward played solo
works by Xenakis, Takemitsu, and Feldman, followed by Taylor, also playing solo.[27] A documentary on
Taylor, entitled All the Notes (https://web.archive.org/web/20080924143425/http://www.chrisfelver.com/f
ilms/taylor.html), was released on DVD in 2006 by director Chris Felver. Taylor was also featured in a
1981 documentary film entitled Imagine the Sound, in which he discusses and performs his music, poetry,
and dance.[28] In 1993, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.[29][30]

2000s
Taylor recorded sparingly in the 2000s, but continued to perform
with his own ensembles (the Cecil Taylor Ensemble and the Cecil
Taylor Big Band) and with other musicians such as Joe Locke,
Max Roach, and Amiri Baraka.[31] In 2004, the Cecil Taylor Big
Band at the Iridium Jazz Club was nominated a best performance
of 2004 by All About Jazz.[32] The Cecil Taylor Trio was
nominated for the same at the Highline Ballroom in 2009.[33] The
trio consisted of Taylor, Albey Balgochian, and Jackson Krall. In
Cecil Taylor, Buffalo, New York
2010, Triple Point Records released a deluxe limited-edition
double LP titled Ailanthus/Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions of 2
Root Songs, a set of duos with Taylor's longtime collaborator Tony Oxley that was recorded live at the
Village Vanguard.[34]
In 2013, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize for Music.[35] He was described as "An Innovative Jazz
Musician Who Has Fully Explored the Possibilities of Piano Improvisation".[36] In 2014, his career and
85th birthday were honored at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia with the tribute concert event
"Celebrating Cecil".[37] In 2016, Taylor received a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art
entitled "Open Plan: Cecil Taylor".[38]

In 2008, Taylor performed with Pauline Oliveros at the Curtis R Priem Experimental Media and
Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The concert was recorded and is available on
a DVD which also features a 75-minute video of a Taylor poetry recital entitled Floating Gardens: The
Poetry Of Cecil Taylor.[39][40] Taylor, along with dancer Min Tanaka, was the subject of Amiel Courtin-
Wilson's 2016 documentary film The Silent Eye.[41]

Ballet and dance

In addition to piano, Taylor was always interested in ballet and dance. His mother, who died while he was
young, was a dancer and played the piano and violin. Taylor once said: "I try to imitate on the piano the
leaps in space a dancer makes."[42] He collaborated with dancer Dianne McIntyre from the mid 1970s to
the early 1980s.[43] In 1979, he composed and played the music for a 12-minute ballet, "Tetra Stomp:
Eatin' Rain in Space", featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Heather Watts.[44]

Poetry
Taylor was a poet, and cited Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, and Amiri Baraka as major influences.[45] He
often integrated his poems into his musical performances, and they frequently appear in the liner notes of
his albums. The album Chinampas, released by Leo Records in 1987, is a recording of Taylor reciting
several of his poems while accompanying himself on percussion.[46] His poetry was likened to his music
primarily by the ways in which Taylor alteres and transforms material both linguistic and musical.[47]

Musical style and legacy

According to Steven Block, free jazz originated with Taylor's performances at the Five Spot Cafe in 1957
and with Ornette Coleman in 1959.[48] In 1964, Taylor co-founded the Jazz Composers Guild to enhance
opportunities for avant-garde jazz musicians.[49]

Taylor's style and methods have been described as "constructivist".[50] Despite Scott Yanow's warning
regarding Taylor's "forbidding music" ("Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music is not for everyone"),
he praises Taylor's "remarkable technique and endurance", and his "advanced", "radical", "original", and
uncompromising "musical vision".[5]

This musical vision is a large part of Taylor's legacy:

Playing with Taylor I began to be liberated from thinking about chords. I'd been imitating John
Coltrane unsuccessfully and because of that I was really chord conscious.
 —Archie Shepp, quoted in LeRoi Jones, album liner notes for Four for Trane (Impulse A-
71, 1964)

Personal life and death

Taylor moved to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in 1983.[9] He died at his Brooklyn residence on April 5, 2018,
at the age of 89.[51][52] At the time of his death, Taylor was working on an autobiography and future
concerts, among other projects.[53]

Discography

References
1. Such, David Glen (1993). Avant-garde Jazz Musicians: Performing "Out There" (https://book
s.google.com/books?id=BPQMX8idVh0C&pg=PA61). University of Iowa Press. p. 61.
ISBN 978-1-58729-231-6.
2. Feather, Leonard; Gitler, Ira (2007). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (https://books.go
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ISBN 978-0-19-532000-8.
3. Seisdedos, Iker (April 6, 2018). "Muere el pianista Cecil Taylor, indomable leyenda del jazz"
(https://elpais.com/cultura/2018/04/06/actualidad/1523006133_515017.html). El Pais.
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6. Wilmer, Val (1977). As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz. Quartet. p. 45.
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Goodbye" (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jan/21/jazz.shopping1). The Guardian.
London. Retrieved March 26, 2011. "Taylor plays the piano... like Art Tatum with
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8. Ratliff, Ben (April 6, 2018). "Cecil Taylor, Pianist Who Defied Jazz Orthodoxy, Is Dead at 89"
(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/obituaries/cecil-taylor-dead.html). The New York
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February 18, 2022.
9. Ratliff, Ben (May 3, 2012). "Lessons From the Dean of the School of Improv" (https://www.n
ytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/music/cecil-taylors-keyboard-legacy.html), The New York
Times. Retrieved December 9, 2017: "I recently spoke with the 83-year-old improvising
pianist Cecil Taylor for about five hours over two days. One day was at his three-story home
in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where he has lived since 1983.... Raised in Corona, Queens, he
started out as a Harlem jam-session musician in the early 1950s and talks with intense
loyalty about a line of particularly New York-identified piano players: Fats Waller, Teddy
Wilson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Mal Waldron, John Hicks."
10. Meeder, Christopher. Jazz: the Basics. p. 150.
11. Fordham, John (July 10, 2008). "CD: Cecil Taylor, Jazz Advance" (https://www.theguardian.c
om/music/2008/jul/11/jazz.johnfordham). The Guardian. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
12. Morton, Brian (2011). The Penguin jazz guide : the history of the music in the 1,001 best
albums. Cook, Richard. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-195900-9. OCLC 759581884 (htt
ps://search.worldcat.org/oclc/759581884).
13. Fordham, John (September 20, 2002). "CD: Gigi Gryce/Donald Byrd/Cecil Taylor, At
Newport" (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2002/sep/20/jazz.artsfeatures1). The
Guardian. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
14. "Coltrane Time – John Coltrane" (https://www.allmusic.com/album/coltrane-time-mw000065
2601). AllMusic. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
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ISBN 0-87910-042-7.
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y-ghost-rare-unissued-recordings-1962-70-mw0000718294). AllMusic. Retrieved April 6,
2018.
18. Kelsey, Chris. "Jimmy Lyons – Biography" (http://allmusic.com/artist/jimmy-lyons-p7010/biog
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19. Cecil Taylor Unit Spring of Two Blue-J's @ kathleen.frederator Tumblr (http://kathleen.freder
ator.com/post/5406913931/cecil-taylor-unit-spring-of-two-blue-js) Archived (https://web.archi
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it-spring-of-two-blue-js) June 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
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orge-wein-a-great-day-in-washington/). JazzTimes. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
21. "Cecil P. Taylor" (https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/cecil-p-taylor/). GF.org. Retrieved
April 6, 2018.
22. La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Rat's Mass, A (1976)". Accessed August
8, 2018. (http://catalog.lamama.org/index.php/Detail/Occurrence/Show/occurrence_id/1586)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20180517082108/http://catalog.lamama.org/index.ph
p/Detail/Occurrence/Show/occurrence_id/1586) May 17, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
23. "Celebrated Blazons" (https://www.allmusic.com/album/celebrated-blazons-mw000069574
4). AllMusic. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
24. "Looking (Berlin Version) The Feel Trio – The Feel Trio | Songs, Reviews, Credits" (https://w
ww.allmusic.com/album/looking-berlin-version-the-feel-trio-mw0000910547). AllMusic.
Retrieved April 6, 2018.
25. Fordham, John (September 20, 2002). "CD: Cecil Taylor Feel Trio, 2 Ts For A Lovely T" (http
s://www.theguardian.com/music/2002/sep/20/jazz.artsfeatures2). The Guardian. Retrieved
April 6, 2018.
26. "Cecil Taylor: Algonquin – Cecil Taylor | Songs, Reviews, Credits" (https://www.allmusic.com/
album/cecil-taylor-algonquin-mw0000468021). AllMusic. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
27. Gill, Dominic (November 26, 1987). "Woodward, Taylor / Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham" (htt
p://www.rogerwoodward.com/images/PDF/Woodward_Taylor_Dominic_Gill.pdf) (PDF). The
Financial Times. London. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
28. "Documentary Screening: Imagine the Sound" (https://www.gardinermuseum.on.ca/event/do
cumentary-screening-imagine-sound-1981/). Gardiner Museum. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
29. "Class of 1991 – MacArthur Foundation" (https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class/july-199
1/). MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
30. West, Hollie I. (May 26, 1981). "The Jazz Man" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lif
estyle/1981/05/26/the-jazz-man/017ef919-a140-4499-b391-35116692a9a9/). The
Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0190-8286). Retrieved
April 6, 2018.
31. Taylor Baraka Duo (http://jazzinsidemagazine.com/Members/sweetpeasuzie/cecil-taylor-and
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5/http://jazzinsidemagazine.com/Members/sweetpeasuzie/cecil-taylor-and-amiri-baraka-perf
orm-in-barcelona/) November 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
32. Big Band (2004). "Best Performances 2004". All About Jazz Press: 10. {{cite
journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
33. Cecil Taylor Trio (2009). "Best Performances 2009". All About Jazz Press: 10. {{cite
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34. "Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley – Ailanthus / Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions Of 2 Root Songs" (ht
tps://www.discogs.com/Cecil-Taylor-Tony-Oxley-Ailanthus-Altissima-Bilateral-Dimensions-Of
-2-Root-Songs/release/2392711). Discogs. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
35. Snapes, Laura (April 6, 2018). "Cecil Taylor, free jazz pioneer, dies age 89" (https://www.the
guardian.com/music/2018/apr/06/cecil-taylor-free-jazz-pioneer-dies-age-89-new-york-pianist
-avant-garde). The Guardian. Retrieved April 7, 2018.
36. "Cecil Taylor" (http://www.kyotoprize.org/en/laureates/cecil_taylor/). Kyoto Prize. Retrieved
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usic/7008-24699747-out-jazz-great-celebrated-at-local-festival) Archived (https://web.archiv
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38. "Open Plan: Cecil Taylor" (http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/OpenPlanCecilTaylor). Whitney
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39. "Solo – Duo – Poetry: Cecil Taylor + Pauline Oliveros" (https://empac.rpi.edu/publications/ce
cil-pauline-solo-duo-poetry). EMPAC.rpi.edu. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
40. "EMPAC offers free DVD of Cecil Taylor and Pauline Oliveros live in 2008" (https://www.thew
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41. Maddox, Gary (April 12, 2016). "Bold new projects for Amiel Courtin-Wilson and more
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miel-courtinwilson-and-more-australian-film-news-20160412-go4d59.html). Sydney Morning
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53. "Biography" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110912011216/http://www.ceciltaylor-art.com/co
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External links
Cecil Taylor (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mn0000988386) at AllMusic
Cecil Taylor (https://ceciltaylor.bandcamp.com/) on Bandcamp
Cecil Taylor (https://www.discogs.com/artist/195812) discography at Discogs
Cecil Taylor (https://musicbrainz.org/artist/0d06bb57-c3b6-4188-9b73-826c41c3e29e)
discography at MusicBrainz

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