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Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor playing in his apartment in the 1960s (Photograph: Charles Rotmil)
Cecil Taylor playing in his apartment in the 1960s (Photograph: Charles Rotmil)
Background information
Birth name Cecil Percival Taylor
Born March 15, 1929 (1929-03-15) (age 79)
Origin New York City
Genre(s) Avant-garde jazz
Occupation(s) bandleader, composer
Instrument(s) piano
Years active 1956 – present
Label(s) Transition
Blue Note
Freedom
Hat Hut
Enja Records
FMP
Associated acts Cecil Taylor Unit
Former members
Steve Lacy, Jimmy Lyons, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Buell Neidlinger, Alan Silva, William Parker,Sunny Murray, Andrew Cyrille, Tony Oxley

Cecil Percival Taylor (born March 15 or March 25, 1929 in New York City) is an American pianist and poet. Events 44 BC - Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Year 1929 ( MCMXXIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The City of New York A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz) is a style of music and Improvisation that combines Avant-garde Art music and composition with A bandleader is the leader of a band of Musicians The term is most commonly though not exclusively used with a group that plays Popular music as A composer (literally meaning 'one who puts together' is a person who creates Music, usually in the medium of notation, for Interpretation and Performance A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. The piano is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard that produces sound by striking steel strings with Felt covered hammers Year 1956 ( MCMLVI) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. In the Music industry, a record label can be a Brand and a Trademark associated with the Marketing of music recordings and Music Freedom Records was a jazz Record label linked with the producer Alan Bates as with his Black Lion Records. Hathut Records (and its imprints hatART HatOLOGY hatMUSICS hatNOIR is a Swiss Record label specialising in Jazz and Contemporary classical Enja Records is a German Jazz Record label based in Munich Germany. Free Music Production (FMP is a German Record label founded by Jost Gebers, Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald, and Alexander von This article is about the jazz musician For the CEO of Meredith see Steve Lacy (businessman. Jimmy Lyons ( December 1, 1931 – May 19, 1986) was an Alto saxophone player Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is a prominent American Jazz Saxophonist. Albert Ayler ( July 13, 1936 – November 1970 was an American avant-garde Jazz saxophonist, singer and Composer. Buell Neidlinger (born March 2, 1936) is an American cellist and double bassist. Alan Silva (born Alan Treadwell da Silva, Bermuda, January 22, 1939) is an American Free jazz Double bassist William Parker may refer to Sportsmen Tony Parker, William Anthony Parker II, (born 1982 Belgian basketball player James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray (born Idabel Oklahoma in 1936 is one of the pioneers of the Free jazz style of Drumming Murray spent Andrew Charles Cyrille is an Avant-garde jazz Drummer. Biography Andrew Cyrille was born on November 10, 1939 in Tony Oxley (born 15 June 1938) is a British Free jazz Drummer and one of the founders of Incus Records. Events 44 BC - Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Events 1199 - Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6. Year 1929 ( MCMXXIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The City of New York The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A pianist (/'piənɪst/ is a Musician who plays the Piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces play with an ensemble or Orchestra [1] Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the inventors of free jazz. For the Ornette Coleman album after which this genre was named see Free Jazz A Collective Improvisation. His music is some of the most challenging in jazz, characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing exceedingly complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. A tone cluster is a musical chord comprising at least three consecutive tones in a scale. At first listen, his dense and percussive music can be difficult to absorb. His piano technique has often been likened to drums and percussion rather than to any other pianists and sometimes resembles modern classical music as well as jazz. A drum kit (also drum set or trap set) is a collection of Drums Cymbals and sometimes other Percussion instruments such as cowbells At the turn of the 20th century classical music was characteristically late Romantic in style while at the same time the Impressionist movement spearheaded by Claude Debussy

Contents

Biography

Taylor began playing piano at age six and went on to study at the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory. After first steps in R&B and swing-styled small groups in the early 1950s, he formed his own band with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in 1956. Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of Jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and had solidified as a distinctive style by 1935 in the United This article is about the jazz musician For the CEO of Meredith see Steve Lacy (businessman.

Taylor's first recording, Jazz Advance, featured Lacy and was released in 1956. Year 1956 ( MCMLVI) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. It is described by Cook & 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 which the pianist would later immerse himself in. Post-bop is a term for a form of small-combo Jazz music that evolved in the early-to-mid sixties "

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taylor's music grew increasingly complex, and moved away from existing jazz styles. It was often difficult for Taylor to find work,[2] despite landmark recordings such as Nefertiti the Beautiful One Has Come (1962) Unit Structures (1966), and a pairing with pioneering saxophonist John Coltrane (Coltrane Time/Hard Drivin' Jazz, 1958). Nefertiti the Beautiful One Has Come is a 1962 Album by the Cecil Taylor Unit recorded live at the Café Montmartre in Copenhagen Unit Structures is a 1966 Album by Cecil Taylor. Track listing All compositions written by Cecil Taylor. Coltrane Time is a 1958 Album by Jazz musician Cecil Taylor, released under this name in 1962

Taylor played and recorded predominantly with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons from 1961 until Lyons's death in 1986, along with drummers Sunny Murray and later Andrew Cyrille. Jimmy Lyons ( December 1, 1931 – May 19, 1986) was an Alto saxophone player James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray (born Idabel Oklahoma in 1936 is one of the pioneers of the Free jazz style of Drumming Murray spent Andrew Charles Cyrille is an Avant-garde jazz Drummer. Biography Andrew Cyrille was born on November 10, 1939 in Within that group, known as "The Unit", the musicians developed often volcanic new forms of conversational interplay.

From the early 1970s onwards, Taylor began to perform solo concerts, some of which were released as the Indent and Silent Tongues albums. He began to garner critical, if not popular, acclaim, playing for Jimmy Carter on the White House Lawn, lecturing as an in-residence artist at universities, and eventually being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973 and then a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991. James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr (born October 1 1924 was the thirty-ninth President of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981 and the recipient of the 2002 Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship (sometimes Nicknamed the "genius grant") is an award given by the John D

Following Lyons's death, Taylor has played in a variety of settings ranging from solo (e. g. For Olim, Garden, Erzulie Maketh Scent, The Tree of Life, and In Willisau), the "Feel Trio" formed in the early 1990s with William Parker (bass) and Tony Oxley (drums) (Celebrated Blazons, Looking (The Feel Trio), and the 10-CD set 2 T's for a Lovely T) as well as larger ensembles and big-band projects. William Parker may refer to Sportsmen Tony Parker, William Anthony Parker II, (born 1982 Belgian basketball player Tony Oxley (born 15 June 1938) is a British Free jazz Drummer and one of the founders of Incus Records. His extended residence in Berlin in 1988 was extensively documented by the German label FMP, resulting in a massive boxed set of performances in duet and trio with a who's who of European free improvisors, including Oxley, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, Tristan Honsinger, Louis Moholo, Paul Lovens, and others. Free Music Production (FMP is a German Record label founded by Jost Gebers, Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald, and Alexander von Derek Bailey ( January 29, 1930 – December 25, 2005) was an English avant-garde Guitarist and leading figure in the Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944 in Bristol is a British free-improvising Saxophone player from the European free jazz Han Bennink (born April 17, 1942) is a Dutch Jazz Drummer, Percussionist. Tristan Honsinger (born October 23 1949 is a Cello player active in Free jazz and Free improvisation. Louis Tebugo Moholo (born 10 March 1940, in Cape Town) is a South African Jazz Drummer. Paul Lovens (born in Aachen, Germany, 6 June 1949) is a musician Most of his recordings for the past several decades have been put out on European labels, with the exception of the unexpected release of Momentum Space (a meeting with Dewey Redman and Elvin Jones) on Verve/Gitanes. Dewey Redman (born Walter Redman in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, May 17, 1931; d Elvin Ray Jones ( 9 September 1927 &ndash 18 May 2004) was one of the most influential jazz drummers of the Post-bop era The classical label Bridge recently released his 1998 Library of Congress performance Algonquin, a duet with violinist Mat Maneri. Mat Maneri, born on October 4, 1969 in Brooklyn New York is an American composer improviser and Jazz Violin and Viola Few recordings from 2000 have yet been published, though Taylor, now in his seventies, continues to perform for capacity audiences around the world with live concerts, usually played on his favored instrument, the Bösendorfer piano that features 9 extra lower register keys. Bösendorfer (L Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH) is an Austrian Piano manufacturer now a Wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha. A documentary spotlighting the enigmatic musician, All the Notes, was released on DVD in 2006 by director Chris Felver.

Cecil Taylor, at Moers Festival 2008
Cecil Taylor, at Moers Festival 2008

In addition to piano, Taylor has always been interested in ballet and dance. The Moers Festival (now officially named mœrs festival) is an international jazz festival in Moers Germany happening yearly every Whitsun. His mother, who died while he was still young, was a dancer and also played the piano and violin. Taylor once said: "I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes". He collaborated with dancer Dianne McIntyre in 1977 and 1979. In 1979 he also composed and played the music for a twelve-minute ballet "Tetra Stomp: Eatin' Rain in Space", featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Heather Watts. Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov (Михаил Николаевич Барышников (born January 27, 1948) is a Soviet -born Russian Heather Watts (born in Long Beach, California, in 1953 is a retired American Prima ballerina and former principal dancer for the New

Taylor is also an accomplished poet, citing Robert Duncan, Charles Olson and Amiri Baraka as major influences. A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" Robert Duncan ( January 7, 1919 – February 3, 1988) was an American poet and a student of H Charles Olson ( 27 December 1910 &ndash 10 January 1970) was an important 2nd generation American modernist poet Amiri Baraka (born October 7 1934 is an American Writer of Poetry, Drama, essays and Music criticism. [3] He often integrates his poems into his musical performances, and they frequently appear in the liner notes of his albums. The CD Chinampas, released by Leo Records in 1987, is a recording of Taylor reciting several of his poems unaccompanied.

Taylor is featured in the 1981 documentary film Imagine the Sound, in which he discusses and performs his music, poetry and dance. Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt in one fashion or another to " Document " reality Imagine the Sound is a 1981 Canadian Documentary film about Free jazz, directed by Ron Mann. He is openly gay. Closeted Coming out (that is " coming out of the closet " describes the voluntary public announcement of one's Sexual orientation and/or Gender identity In the English language, gay is an Adjective that in modern usage refers to Homosexuality. [4]

Discography

References

  1. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=CECIL|TAYLOR&sql=11:fifyxqy5ldse~T1
  2. ^ Spellman, A. Harri Sjöström (born February 29 1952 in Turku, Finland) is a saxophonist who specializes in the Soprano saxophone. B. (1985 originally 1966). Four Lives in the Bebop Business. Limelight. ISBN 0-87910-042-7.  
  3. ^ Interview
  4. ^ Gill, John (1995). Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth Century Music. University of Minnesota Press, 61. ISBN 0816627193.  

Futher Reading

External links

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