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Jean-Luc Godard once claimed that “film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami.” One could also say that jazz begins with Buddy Bolden and ends with Cecil Taylor. From his emergence in the mid-1950s until his passing in 2018, Taylor not only disassembled jazz and reconstructed it in his own style, but also found ways to make the world listen. The avant-garde revolution of the ’60s produced many visionary jazz musicians, but few were able to perform at both Carnegie Hall and the White House. Live at the KiMo Theater Albuquerque 1979, the latest release from Taylor’s archives, is a recently uncovered live set originally intended for broadcast on NPR. Though it may not have made it to the airwaves, the fact that it was even considered for mass consumption speaks to Taylor’s unique visibility as an atonal jazz pianist.
It also represents a unique moment in his career. While alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons was present in every iteration of the Cecil Taylor Unit from its inception in the mid-’60s up to his passing in 1986 and violinist Ramsey Ameen had been in the Unit for two years, the rhythm section of the group was in flux. On this recording, Alan Silva, a Paris expat who had played on Taylor’s two legendary Blue Note albums in the ’60s, returns on bass and cello, while percussionist Jerome Cooper joins for his first-ever gig with the group. However recognizable the structures may be—isolated phrases giving way to longform improvisation—the performance finds Taylor in a transitional period, one in which the ephemerality of the moment pushed its musicians to bold new places.
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In Val Wilmer’s book As Serious As Your Life, Wilmer refers to Taylor’s piano as “eighty-eight tuned drums.” It’s a memorable quote—and one of the most famous observations of his style—but the persistent critical focus on the percussive attack of Taylor’s playing sometimes overlooks the range of his work and his playing. Throughout the recording, Taylor makes dramatic leaps from grumbling rhythms in his piano’s lower register and dizzying runs in its upper reaches. But between these aggressive moves lies a delicate sensibility reflective of Duke Ellington’s early influence on his work. In fact, Taylor’s playing at the beginning of the first set almost feels like a more angular take on early-’60s Money Jungle-era Ellington. This is punctured by a wailing refrain from Lyons, whose runs serve as a continual anchor to the jazz tradition throughout his time with Taylor. But as the music builds in intensity, the blues and bebop references in Lyons’ playing get swept up in a wave of interlocking patterns.
The joy of listening to the Cecil Taylor Unit is hearing how any group of musicians could find their bearings within this maelstrom of sound. Though newcomer Cooper’s approach is far more reserved in comparison to the power drummers Taylor had worked with previously (such as Sunny Murray, Andrew Cyrille, and Ronald Shannon Jackson), he asserts himself on this performance. While his steady rhythms and pitter-patter textures could risk being overshadowed by the intensity of his surroundings, they instead serve as a grounding force, amply dancing around the edges of the music. On Taylor’s two Blue Note recordings, Unit Structures and Conquistador!, Silva is one of two bassists, with Henry Grimes providing a lower counterpoint to his bow-heavy upper register. But with Ameen on violin, this dynamic is inverted, and the intermingling of their strings on the recording provides a unique tonal color.
This distinct atmosphere is especially noticeable in the second set when Cooper swaps his trap set for a balafon and Taylor reaches into his piano to pluck the strings. It’s one of the few moments in Taylor’s oeuvre that calls to mind the offbeat compositions of Harry Partch and John Cage, taking on a surreal character both playful and utterly transfixing in its wiry sound. However challenging it must have been to improvise with a figure as dominating as Taylor, the performance captured on Live at the KiMo Theater is a testament to the immense freedom his approach encouraged in each of his collaborators.
