Alex Ward's Cecil Taylor Blog

[jeffcrom]

British improviser Alex Ward has a blog (with only a few entries so far) which I find fascinating. I've always thought of Taylor primarily as a composer, even though he disdained that description. His compositional processes have remained mostly mysterious to me, though, especially since he seldom recorded the same piece more than once. But apparently he did. Ward has explored Taylor's recorded output - official and otherwise - and found instances of the same composition occurring multiple times, often under different titles. This is the key blog entry so far:

https://alexwardmusicblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/list-of-recurring-compositions-1962-1986/

This bit caught my eye:

1985, One Night With Blue Note: “PONTOS CANTADOS”
= 1986, For Olim: “THE QUESTION”
= 1986, April 10th, Workshop Freie Musik, Academie Der Künste, Berlin, Germany: piece 1
= 1986, Olu Iwa: “B EE BA NGANGA BAN’A EEE!”

so I listened to the three released pieces mentioned. The second part of "Pontos Cantados," subtitled "Point Two: Question," does indeed seem to be the same piece as "The Question." I'm less sure about "B Ee Ba Nganga Ban'a Eee" - the context of this septet performance is so different from the two piano solos that it's hard to tell, although I do hear similarities in the melodic material.

In any case, this blog promises to give me much to explore and think about.

Edited November 28, 2018 by jeffcrom

[paul secor]

Thanks for making us aware of this blog, Jeff.