Cecil Taylor

"3 Phasis" (1978) is considered by many to be one of Taylor's strongest. Cecil and his "Unit" play for just under an hour with balance, restraint and shape. While not as cathartic as this band's previous New World recording, there are stunning moments (at one point they sounds like a herd of stampeding elephants). As always, Taylor uses his piano to break all forms of musical etiquette. ~ CDUniverse

This album and "Unit Structures" were the first recordings of the fully matured Cecil Taylor. The pianist/composer finally mastered the art of mixing composed and improvised music into a dense, powerful soundscape and found musicians who understood his concept.

Cecil Taylor - Conquistador! (1966) {2004 Blue Note RVG Remaster}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 355 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 131 Mb
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© 1966, 2004 Blue Note / Capitol | 7243 5 76749 2 8 | 24-bit remaster
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano

For the second of Cecil Taylor's two Blue Note albums (following Unit Structures), the innovative pianist utilized a sextet comprised of trumpeter Bill Dixon, altoist Jimmy Lyons, both Henry Grimes and Alan Silva on basses and drummer Andrew Cyrille. During the two lengthy pieces, Lyons' passionate solos contrast with Dixon's quieter ruminations while the music in general is unremittingly intense. Both of the Taylor Blue Notes are quite historic and near-classics but, despite this important documentation, Cecil Taylor (other than a pair of Paris concerts) would not appear on records again until 1973.

Mary Lou Williams & Cecil Taylor - Embraced (1977) {Pablo PACD 2620-108-2 rel 1995}
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© 1977, 1995 Pablo Records / Fantasy | PACD 2620-108-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Stride / Piano

A masterful meeting of two important piano modernists – Mary Lou Williams and Cecil Taylor – sounding incredibly wonderful here in each other's company! The set features a core rhythmic pulse from Mickey Roker on drums and Bob Cranshaw on bass – and Williams and Taylor really take off on their twin pianos – with Cecil almost leading Mary Lou more into territory of his own, although she also brings an undercurrent of soul to the set that makes the record unlike any other that Taylor ever recorded! The approach shouldn't work, but it's captivatingly brilliant from the start.

Cecil Taylor - Nailed (1990) {FMP CD 108 rel 2000}
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© 1990, 2000 FMP | CD 108
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Creative / Piano

A super-session in theory, this one-off gig was recorded in Berlin in 1990 during another of Cecil Taylor's extended stays. According to the liner notes, this gig was tense from the start because of some ill will between some of the band's members, hence the title of the album. Whatever. The two tracks that comprise this set are full of the explosive, full-bore playing each of this quartet's members is well-known for. It's easy to believe there is tension here, the playing from the outset starts at furious and gets wilder. But what's more interesting is that given Taylor's gigantic stature among musicians, even the three he's playing with, he doesn't dominate the proceedings.

One of Cecil Taylor's earliest recordings, Looking Ahead! does just that while still keeping several toes in the tradition. It's an amazing document of a talent fairly straining at the reins, a meteor about to burst onto the jazz scene and render it forever changed. With Earl Griffith on vibes, Taylor uses an instrumentation he would return to occasionally much later on, one that lends an extra percussive layer to the session, emphasizing the new rhythmic attacks he was experimenting with. Griffith sounds as though he might have been a conceptual step or two behind the other three but, in the context of the time, this may have served to make the music a shade more palatable to contemporary tastes…

Released on LP in 1966, Cecil Taylor's Student Studies is an anomaly from his other recordings of the era. Not purely improvised, Taylor uses arranged sections and built-in segments for thematic and improvisational space. His meditations on short tonal studies and propulsive bursts of energy became signifiers of his later music. The band here, including Jimmy Lyons, bassist Alan Silva, and drummer Andrew Cyrille, registered with Taylor's fluid disciplinary approach to atonalism and dissonance, and found room to actually swing in. In fact, the influences Taylor spoke of most often during the era – Ellington, Bud Powell, and Mingus, can be traced here, if not heard outright.