Taylor-made for the avant-garde


Cecil Taylor at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles

David Prince for The New Mexican
April 1, 2005

When discussing the seismic avant-garde versus the mainstream schism that caused such heated debate and outright dissent among the modern-jazz faithful in the early- and mid-1960s — the same schism that continues to divide listeners — the names John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Cecil Taylor are often mentioned, and usually in that order.

Coltrane is certainly the best-known of these three, perhaps because he was a mainstream star who had stood alongside Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk by the time he went to the "other" side. Because of this high visibility, Coltrane took the brunt of the criticism aimed at the new avant-garde aesthetic of roaring atonality and unbuttoned abstract expressionism.

But Coltrane was the last of the three to take up the banner of the avant-garde full time. And even though the loose-limbed, Texas-tinged updating of bop and blues that Coleman purveys has gathered more widespread support among critics and record buyers alike, Taylor was the first member of this holy "free jazz" trinity to have his radical approach documented on disc. From the beginning it was Taylor whose technique was so immense, whose sound was so advanced, whose conception was so rarified that his music tended to fly right on by most of us who attempted to understand it.

Taylor has long maintained that his brand of jazz is grounded in the basics, in Duke Ellington and Monk, in Bud Powell and Horace Silver. He has also named Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky as early influences, but so have many others. (Charlie Parker once told friends he hoped to study with avant-garde French composer Edgard Varèse. Another early Taylor influence, Dave Brubeck, was taught by classical composer Darius Milhaud, and George Russell imagined a meeting between Parker and Stravinsky in "A Bird in Igor's Yard.")

But music isn't the only thing that interests Taylor, nor is it the only discipline that informs his artistry. Above all, Cecil Percival Taylor, who grew up in the Queens borough of New York City, is an artist and an intellectual.

As a youth, he studied both piano and percussion and later learned theory and composition at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music. The first Taylor unit to record, in 1956, included soprano saxist Steve Lacy, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles. Taylor later provided the onstage occasional music for the off-Broadway hit The Connection with an ensemble that included the young Archie Shepp, and he recorded an album in 1958 that featured a pre-"free" Coltrane on tenor. Other notable Taylor cohorts include saxophonist Sam Rivers; trumpeters Ted Curson and Bill Dixon; bassists Henry Grimes and William Parker; and drummers Sunny Murray, Andrew Cyrille, and Max Roach (with whom he recorded a landmark set of breathtaking and exhausting duets). His longest-lasting and most fruitful musical connection was with altoist Jimmy Lyons, the New Jersey-born Parker acolyte who joined Taylor's band in the early '60s and stayed with him until 1986, when Lyons died.

Taylor recently received a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990.

Taylor's affinity for ballet and other classical dance forms is well-known. His musical colleagues have mentioned how the wide intervalic leaps and dazzling harmonic turns that characterize a Taylor improvisation are the aural equivalent of a bravura modern-dance routine. Taylor has often appeared onstage dressed in workout clothes and a knit cap, and a workout is what an evening with Taylor can quickly become. Fingers fly over the keyboard in a blurry flurry of notes, massive tonal clusters hammered out by elbows, forearms, and knuckles. Vocal outcries mix with chordal thrusts and parallel voice/keyboard counterpoint. Like his hero Monk, Taylor spontaneously dances. And, like the beat poets he knew and admired, Taylor bursts into verse when the spirit moves him, then returns to the piano just as suddenly.

Because Taylor is reluctant to talk about his music, he resists defining or quantifying what he plays. "I don't know what jazz is," he said during a recent interview in anticipation of his multiple appearances in Albuquerque. "I don't even think the word has any meaning."

But Taylor clearly knows the history of jazz — and of music in general. And he's familiar with dance and poetry, as well as fiction, architecture, and numerous other cultural callings. In a single rambling recitation, he can mix references to Jean Genet, Marvin Gaye, Gyorgi Ligeti, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Creeley, the George Washington Bridge, and Billie Holiday.

Maybe that's why it will take five full days for New Mexico to absorb the Taylor experience, starting with the Cecil Taylor Trio concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 2, at Albuquerque's National Hispanic Cultural Center.

On Sunday, April 3, the Guild Cinema screens the documentary Cecil Taylor: All the Notes at 3 and 5 p.m. At 7:30 p.m. Sunday the Outpost Performance Space hosts Taylor for a free evening of his poetry and spoken word.

At 2 p.m. Monday, April 4, Taylor is featured in a Meet the Composer program as part of the University of New Mexico's John D. Robb Composers' Symposium. At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, Taylor performs in the UNM Center for the Arts' Keller Hall, and at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, he's the focus of a free Ask the Composer event, also at UNM.

details

Cecil Taylor Trio

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 2

National Hispanic Cultural Center's Roy E. Disney Center for the Performing Arts,

1701 Fourth St. S.W., Albuquerque

$20-$35, 505-268-0044

Cecil Taylor: All The Notes, documentary introduced by director Chris Felver

3 & 5 p.m. Sunday, April 3

Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave. N.E., Albuquerque

$5, 505-255-1848

Wordspace: Cecil Taylor, spoken-word performance

7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 3

Outpost Performance Space, 210 Yale Blvd. S.E., Albuquerque

No charge, 505-268-0044

Meet the Composer: Cecil Taylor

2 p.m. Monday, April 4

UNM Center for the Arts, Room B-120, Central Avenue & Cornell Drive, Albuquerque

No charge, 505-277-2126

Cecil Taylor, solo piano performance

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 5

UNM Center for the Arts, Keller Hall, Central Avenue & Cornell Drive, Albuquerque

No charge, 505-277-2126

Ask the Composer: Cecil Taylor

2 p.m. Wednesday, April 6

UNM Center for the Arts, Room B-120, Central Avenue & Cornell Drive, Albuquerque

No charge, 505-277-2126

Far side of Brooklyn

They call themselves the Brooklyn Sax Quartet, but the group has several New Mexico connections.

The group's original lineup consisted of David Bindman on tenor, Fred Ho on baritone, Sam Furnace on alto, and Chris Jonas on soprano. Jonas lives in Santa Fe and performs with the band Bing. In 1995 both Ho and Furnace performed a memorable concert at the Center for Contemporary Arts as part of Ho's Afro Asian Music Ensemble.

Furnace died a year ago after a lengthy battle with cancer; his place in the BSQ lineup was taken by Sam Newsome. Jonas' soprano seat is now occupied by John O'Gallagher, but Bindman and Ho are still along for the ride.

The group's new release, Far Side of Here, is what brings them to the Outpost for a show at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7. In addition to a number of original tunes by Bindman and Ho, the album has the foursome covering vintage jazz material by Billy Strayhorn and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as political tunes penned by Semenya McCord and Pete Seeger that are part of a Ho arrangement called "The Black Nation Suite."

Even without a rhythm section this quartet can — and does — swing. Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased at the door or reserved by calling the Outpost Performance Space at 505-268-0044.