*** Cecil Taylor ***

[sal]

Just received "One Too Many Salty Swift And Not Goodbye" from Jazz Loft, and have been listening to it all morning. Wow!!

[Uncle Skid]

I'm always glad to see this thread pop up again... gonna go put "Salty Swift" in the CD player right now!

Edited January 19, 2008 by Uncle Skid

[7/4]

Someone started a Web site for Cecil, www.cecil-taylor.com, and things were looking good there at first, but the concert listings have not been maintained.

It doesn't look like they paid the rent on it lately.

[Chalupa]

This info is courtesy of Margaret Davis via the CT list....

From http://www.bluenote.net/newyork/schedule/m...nfo.cgi?id=5837

CECIL TAYLOR AHA 3

2OO8-O1-31, 8 PM

$2O cover at bar, $35 at table

Blue Note

131 West 3rd St

New York, NY 1OO12

212-475-8592

club@bluenote.net

www.bluenote.net

Produced by Jill Newman Productions

Don't miss the chance to see this incredible jazz pianist for one night only

with his trio at the end of January!

Cecil Taylor AHA 3

FEATURING:

Cecil Taylor, piano

Other musicians, TBA

"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

Cecil Taylor has been an uncompromising creative force who is a testament to

his own existence and personal experience since his earliest recordings in

the 1950's. In the 1960's, his music would become a leading exponent, along

with that of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, of the budding "free-jazz"

movement. This movement shook the very foundations on which jazz music was

securely resting and marks a major turning point in the history of the music

that challenged the structures of form and the tonal harmonic system. Taylor

has said of his characteristic rhythmic playing that he tries "to imitate on

the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes" and his orchestral facility on

the piano has allowed him to innovate new musical textures in small ensemble

performance. Taylor's playing has always been technically sophisticated, but

as he once said, "technique is a weapon to do whatever must be done". The

personnel in his bands over his almost five decades in jazz comprises a list

of astounding talent including: Steve Lacy, Jimmy Lyons, Albert Ayler, Buell

Neidlinger, Dennis Charles, Archie Shepp, William Parker, Max Roach, Tony

Williams, Mark Helias, Mary Lou Williams, and Bill Dixon. Additionally, he

has worked with several notable dancers and choreographers including

composing music for Diane McIntyre, Mikhail Barishnokov, and Heather Watts.

While his music has always been controversial to mainstream audiences, he

has always been totally true to his artistic vision, and this has extended

into all aspects of his life including his passions for reading, dance,

theatre, and architecture. He is also an accomplished poet, and has

incorporated this talent into many of his performances and recordings.

Born in New York on March 15, 1929, Cecil Taylor began playing piano and at

the age of five at the encouragement of his mother. From 1951-1955 he

attended the New England Conservatory where he concentrated in piano and

music theory. His early professional career began working with Hot Lips Page

and Johnny Hodges (c. 1953). In 1955 he formed a quartet with Steve Lacy and

soon released his first important album, Jazz Avance (1956). An engagement

shortly after at the Five Spot helped to establish the Greenwich Village

club as a forum for East Coast new jazz. During this period he also made an

appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Great South Bay Jazz

Festival. In 1960 his "free-jazz" quartet controversially temporarily

replaced a "hard-bop" band in the play The Connection.

In 1962 he was awarded Downbeat's "new star" award for pianists while

ironically unable to get work for most of the 60's. He claims he was forced

to live on welfare for at least five years during this period. In 1964 he

took part in the October Revolution in Jazz, a series of New York City

Concerts self-sponsored by Bill Dixon's Jazz Composers Guild (consisting

mostly of musicians of the avant-garde variety). In the 70's, he briefly

taught at Antioch College, the University of Wisconsin, and Glassboro State

College in New Jersey.

Virtually all of Taylor's recorded music between 1967 and 1977 was recorded

and released in Europe. After 1973, his career began to gain momentum and he

began to tour regularly as a solo pianist and leading his own groups. He was

also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and ran his own record label named Unit

Core. In 1975 he was elected into the Down Beat Hall of Fame. In 1979 he

composed music for the play "Tetra Stomp: Eatn' Rain in Space".

In the late 70's and early 80's Taylor began to collaborate with Diane

McIntyre and her dance company Sound In Motion. This company focused on

combining jazz and spoken poetry into dance. In 1988 he was honored with a

month-long festival of his music in Berlin, involving many of Europe's

prominent avant-garde jazz musicians. In 1990 he was named a NEA Jazz Master

and in 1991 he was awarded a McArthur Foundation "genius" grant-in-aid,

which provided him with considerable financial security. He was not invited

to play at Jazz at Lincoln Center because of certain accusations that his

music did not fit into the artistic directors' definition of "jazz", so he

rented Alice Tully Hall and gave an unaccompanied piano concert, which won

him a considerable amount of critical acclaim. In October of that year he

gave a concert with orchestral accompaniment in San Francisco and in 1999 he

appeared at a Library of Congress concert in Washington, D.C.

Taylor, now in his 77th year, continues to compose music and poetry. At a

time in his career when most artists of his stature could sustain themselves

with a victory lap of regurgitating the past or to slip into silent

retirement, Taylor continues to push new boundaries with his art. Taylor is

unquestionably an artist of the highest rank, and a direct link to America's

art music. His very personal and distinct artistic vision has taken him

through much innovative and unexplored musical territory, demanding much of

his listeners but also providing content that can be enjoyed. The musical

world is awaiting the next step of Cecil Taylor. - AAJ

# # #

[NOTE: Cecil invited Henry Grimes to play this concert, but Henry has a

previous commitment that requires him to be in Europe on January 31st.]

[7/4]

This info is courtesy of Margaret Davis via the CT list....

There's a CT list?

[Chalupa]

This info is courtesy of Margaret Davis via the CT list....

There's a CT list?

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/CTResearch/

[7/4]

thnx!

[musicmargaret]

To put it bluntly, the "CTResearch" list seems to be mostly people involved in furtive concert taping without asking the musicians or venues for permission, and swapping the tapes, and maybe in some cases bootlegging (meaning selling) them.

That stuff is zero percent cool with me. But once in a while I post in a concert listing to that list, hoping that a few ticket sales will result from people who genuinely want to hear Cecil Taylor play in person.

In case you're in Austria (or can get there), at www.porgy.at/e-index.html, there's a listing for Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley on Sunday, February 24th at 8:3O p.m. (2O:3O) at the club Porgy and Bess, Riemergasse 11, A-1O1O Vienna, Austria, +43 1 5O3 7O O9, tickets and reservations +43 1 512 88 11, www.porgy.at, ticket@porgy.at, porgy@porgy.at.

[Chuck Nessa]

Thanks Margaret. Next time you see Cecil, please give him my greetings.

How are you folks doing?

[7/4]

To put it bluntly, the "CTResearch" list seems to be mostly people involved in furtive concert taping without asking the musicians or venues for permission, and swapping the tapes, and maybe in some cases bootlegging (meaning selling) them.

That stuff is zero percent cool with me.

That's news to me. I still haven't been approved for the list yet, so I haven't seen it. I wouldn't pay for a boot.

[musicmargaret]

We're doing fine, Chuck, and thanks for asking. We think of you and Ann often and hope to be back in Michigan one fine day soon. Henry has rehearsals next week for Marc Ribot's Spiritual Unity tour, taking place in Europe the first part of February (tour details can be seen at www.henrygrimes.com and click on the "schedule" button). We fly to Norway on January 29th, which is why Henry couldn't join Cecil Taylor at the Blue Note on the 31st. We've lots of big plans for the rest of 2OO8, but I shouldn't really be posting them into this particular thread. But are you releasing any new recordings on your wonderful label? If so, let's be in touch about that!

[clifford_thornton]

To put it bluntly, the "CTResearch" list seems to be mostly people involved in furtive concert taping without asking the musicians or venues for permission, and swapping the tapes, and maybe in some cases bootlegging (meaning selling) them.

That stuff is zero percent cool with me. But once in a while I post in a concert listing to that list, hoping that a few ticket sales will result from people who genuinely want to hear Cecil Taylor play in person.

I'm not involved with the "CTResearch" group, but I am not so sure that trading among collectors is a bad thing. Profiting is something else, but tape-trading among fans and scholars I can't frown upon. Especially artists like Cecil, whose music demands careful study but who hasn't always had the benefit of record companies willing to release his music.

Not having been around the music in 1966, it's great to hear such an important transitional piece as "Amplitude" on "bootlegs," not to mention write about it.

[7/4]

CECIL TAYLOR

New York Society for Ethical Culture, JVF Fest review

Has Cecil Taylor mellowed with age?

For all Mr. Taylor’s virtuosity as a pianist and originality as an improviser, his concerts have sometimes been so unrelentingly intense that they seemed as much assault as performance. His solo recital at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Friday night, part of the JVC Jazz Festival, felt more like an embrace.

Mr. Taylor owes stylistic debts to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, but his music has always been so defiantly sui generis that after more than half a century there are still those who question whether it can even be called jazz. Finding a way into it can be an effort for some listeners; easy handles — a sustained melody line, a steady beat — are rare.

It would be a stretch to characterize his Friday performance as accessible in any conventional sense. But for much of his hour at the piano the music was, to use a word not always associated with Mr. Taylor, pretty.

All the hallmarks of his style were there: ominously rumbling bass lines, breathtakingly rapid runs, percussive tone clusters. But there were also numerous passages of quiet delicacy, and more than a few deftly deployed silences. The violent torrents of notes that are a Taylor specialty were in short supply; more often the music simply flowed, elegantly and peacefully.

While it hardly sounded as if Mr. Taylor had lost his edge, it did sound as if he had found a way to emphasize the lyricism that has long been an important if underappreciated color in his palette, and to temper his intensity without damping his fire. Maybe this is just the way an enfant terrible sounds as he approaches 80.

Mr. Taylor’s fellow pianist George Cables, also playing unaccompanied, opened the evening. Mr. Cables is not as daring an improviser as Mr. Taylor; few if any jazz pianists are. But while staying solidly grounded in post-bop concepts of harmony and rhythm, he left a pleasingly personal mark on a selection of original compositions and familiar standards, notably an uncharacteristically high-energy “ ’Round Midnight.” PETER KEEPNEWS, NY Times June 23, 2008

[Hoppy T. Frog]

CT w/ Tony Oxley July 15-20 at the Village Vanguard.

[ATR]

Up for refreshed reading, and wondering what you all thought of these recordings:

Just happened to see this post, and I realize it's quite old. Two great CT recordings. Akisakila was a two record set documenting the trio in Japan with Cyrille and Lyons. There was a companion record of CT solo. This is the first version of the Unit I heard live, and the recording is essential. Live in the Black Forest is the same band as the New World studio recordings and One Too Many... Features Ronald Shannon Jackson, Lyons, Sirone, Ramsey Ameen on violin, and Raphe Malik on trumpet. More concise than One Two Many, and equally essential. I've never seen it on CD, and only seen Akisakila as an expensive import.

[clifford_thornton]

Pardon my French, Organauts, but are you fucking dense 7/4, or a rebel without a clue? Jealous because you're apparently incapable of expression anybody would even bother to steal, let alone pay for? If that's "harsh," consider the reality where NOBODY is paying Peter Keepnews to write about anything. I was under the impression-- mistaken, apparently-- that Mark Stryker clarified this once and for all. It's amazing to me some of the fights that go on here and this nonsense is tolerated month-after-month, year-after-year. As I said previously, I've often worked in the newspaper racket and while I really don't care about copyright in this case, 7/4 and other thoughtless people like him are screwing things up for everyone who cares to read about anything. That you just swiped however many page views/minutes away from Peter Keepnews, who's vastly superior to both his father and most nitwits who write about Our Music makes it even worse.

Chill, dude.

[AllenLowe]

PRESIDENT GIVES GOOD SPEECH

UPI

OCTOBER 4, 1865

by Wendell Hooperslopper

President Lincoln gave a speech recently in which, according to him:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

[7/4]

Pardon my French, Organauts, but are you fucking dense 7/4, or a rebel without a clue? Jealous because you're apparently incapable of expression anybody would even bother to steal, let alone pay for? If that's "harsh," consider the reality where NOBODY is paying Peter Keepnews to write about anything. I was under the impression-- mistaken, apparently-- that Mark Stryker clarified this once and for all. It's amazing to me some of the fights that go on here and this nonsense is tolerated month-after-month, year-after-year. As I said previously, I've often worked in the newspaper racket and while I really don't care about copyright in this case, 7/4 and other thoughtless people like him are screwing things up for everyone who cares to read about anything. That you just swiped however many page views/minutes away from Peter Keepnews, who's vastly superior to both his father and most nitwits who write about Our Music makes it even worse.

Clem, you sound restless, irritable and discontent.

[Shawn]

Clem, you sound restless, irritable and discontent.

In other words, same as always....

[Chalupa]

FYI.... Cecil will be appearing in San Francisco this October.

http://www.sfjazz.org/concerts/2008/fall/artists/Taylor.asp

[Shawn]

(and this Shawn poster in monkey see monkey duh mode)

Okay Chauncey, Clem, whatever you're calling yourself this week...got a great idea, why don't you go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself?

[clifford_thornton]

I like the Cecil/Maneri duo, too. Funny enough I can't seem to locate my copy of it.

When I reviewed the disc for AAJ, it took approximately two days for comments to be posted about how Cecil's work wasn't "jazz" or even "music." Clearly, that line of thinking still rages on, even though it's not given much space in print these days. There are numerous repostings from the NYT here by posters other than 7/4. I believe that in this case, it was chosen to emphasize the section on Cecil, which in the article as a whole was rather small. The 'net sure does make those "fair use" argument kinda slinky, don't it?

[Shawn]

I don't live in New York and don't read newspapers as a rule, so the re-postings of articles are welcome. I'm not going to get caught up in copyright arguments...I suffered through copyright law in college and learned just enough to know that it basically makes no sense whatsoever.

But, since re-posting a jazz article from the Times might convince someone they need to purchase a subscription to the paper...then in my opinion it falls under fair use.

[ep1str0phy]

FYI.... Cecil will be appearing in San Francisco this October.

http://www.sfjazz.org/concerts/2008/fall/artists/Taylor.asp

HELL TO THE YES. Thank you, J.H.

[7/4]

The two times I heard Cecil, I was surprised by how quiet he was...it's been a few years, but I think both gigs were 5-10 years ago.

.