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Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor (born in March 15, 1929, in New York City) is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His piano technique has been likened to percussion, for example described as "eighty-eight tuned drums" (referring to the number of keys on a standard piano). He has also been described as "like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings".

Cecil Percival Taylor (born in March 15, 1929, in New York City) is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His piano technique has been likened to percussion, for example described as "eighty-eight tuned drums" (referring to the number of keys on a standard piano). He has also been described as "like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings".

More Lost Performances (Revisited)
"The almost five year span bookended in this particular Ayler revisitation marks, in a certain sense,  the beginning and end points of the most lasting and creative portion of his remarkable, though  sadly brief, career." – Brian Olewnick
Silent Tongues - Live At Montreux '74
*2023 stock* "Cecil Taylor's solo piano set at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1974 drew critical acclaim, earning five-star reviews from the Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide and AllMusic's Scott Yanow. The set features Taylor's five-movement work 'Silent Tongues,' along with two encores. After being out of print for nearly four decades, the classic live album has been remastered at Infrasonic Mastering and pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl at Pallas Group in Germany. Silent Tongues is a must-have …
The Great Paris Concert
Cecil Taylor has always been considered one of the most daring and radical improvisers within the jazz genre, often pushing the boundaries with avant-garde and free jazz compositions. The Great Paris Concert is no exception Taylor's reputation. The artistic communication between the players of Taylor's quartet is second to none, and it's certainly palpable on every track of the album. Echoing each other's melodies, and 'battling' each other with solos, the group may have never sounded better. Th…
Indent
*2023 stock* Indent, a live solo album by Cecil Taylor, was recorded in Ohio in March 1973. The album was originally released on Taylor’s own Unit Core label and subsequently more widely released on the Freedom label. The album has received critical praise, including a 4/5 star review from the Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. Previously out of print for decades, the phenomenal work is finally coming back to vinyl with an audiophile-grade pressing from Pallas Group. The album was remastered for v…
Mysteries:Untitled
*2023 stock* 'The chief attraction of this album is an almost 50 minute, previously unreleased solo performance by Taylor given at New York University in November 1976 as part of the Bösendorfer Festival, a benefit series for the Kitchen performance centre. His previous solo recital that year had been in August at Moosham Castle in the Lungau region of Salzburg during an open-air festival, subsequently released as Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within) (Enja, 1977). Taylor had come across a Böse…
Indent
*2023 stock* In 1973, Indent marked a new direction for one of the founders and masters of what was to be called »free jazz«; yet it turned out to have defined styles and highly sophisticated rules of its own. It was radically new and initially difficult to tune into for some. Cecil Taylor was composing in fractions of seconds. He was free to decide what to compose but in the end intelligent structures can be perceived with a multitude of »cells« being introduced, developed and layered one upon …
Silent Tongues
*2023 stock* 'If you had to pick three architects of modern jazz piano, you could just about cover everything with Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner and Cecil Taylor. Despite his phenomenal talent, Taylor may have seemed like the lesser influence at first, as most of his followers were relegated to the avant-garde end of things, but over the years his influence has grown and these days you are liable to hear Taylor type assaults on the piano from guys like Craig Taborn, Jason Moran or others, while they p…
Poschiavo
*2023 stock* In the life of every artist comes the time when toward the end of his existence, he will create a monument to his ever-lasting artistic efforts. It is the Swan-Song for which he wishes to remain being known; for centuries, this has crossed the borderlines between cultures and arts. Poschiavo was recorded when Cecil Taylor was sixty-nine years old, very much at the height of his musical and poetic powers. Recorded in Europe on a fine Bösendorfer grand piano in perfect digital clarity…
Respiration
Respiration adds to the Cecil Taylor oeuvre a nearly perfect 43 minutes of Taylor’s solo power recorded at a beautiful level of quality. It comes from early-ish in his career—it’s always surprising to me, even though I know the history very well, how early Taylor was going this far away from the rails—when he had only just cemented his mature vision ( Conquistador! and Unit Structures were 1966). It feels as joyfully playful for him as it does for him as it does for us. It’s hard to tell sometim…
With(Exit) To Student Studies, Revisited
'Cecil Taylor’s whole career was a wave-front of exploration. The analogy with light is apposite enough. He evolved so fast most of us never quite caught up and relied instead on a few safe generalisations that momentarily applied around 1962 and only occasionally thereafter. Taylor rarely referenced the space programme, and admitted towards the end of his life that he had found the moon landings “banal”. Like Sun Ra, he was a cosmonaut of sound, breaking free of gravity and showing us the music…
Cecil Taylor / Bill Dixon / Tony Oxley
'As evidenced by this release of the set, the music played that night was intimate, even delicate. It still seems that Dixon didn't quite sit down at the table with his mates, and his electronic effects don't do him any favors, but credit seems due to him for keeping the set at an unusual slow burn. There aren't the displays of pyrotechnics evidenced in Taylor and Oxley's duo performances. Instead, piano and drums dance lightly around the trumpet's background wash, creating a music both sparse a…
....... Being Astral And All Registers – Power Of Two......
A live (first class quality) recording of the duo from 2002 - from the personal archives of Tony Oxley.
Music From Two Continents (Live At Jazz Jamboree '84)
Full-length, legendary Cecil Taylor Orchestra concert from Jazz Jamboree 1984 feat. greatest names on American and European free jazz scene.
Centrifuga
A grand reunion of sorts in Berlin on the first day of November, 1996. Under the auspices of Free Music Production, Cecil Taylor, the great pianist and one of the premier musical minds of the 20th century, joined forces with his early comrade, drummer Sunny Murray, for a set of improvised duets. Murray was part of Taylor's important groups starting in 1959, including the trio with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, with which Taylor toured Europe in 1962 and 1963, recording the seminal Nefertiti, the…
Gottingen
Do you remember the legendary CD Legba Crossing released on FMP? Of course, you do! Each Cecil Taylor's music fan does it! Two years later Ove Volquartz assembled almost the same line-up and brought Cecil Taylor to Gottingen to work with the legendary artist longer and more intense. Here you have the whole monumental concert they gave on September 15th! What is the difference? Fundamental as always in the case of such great visionaries like Cecil was! Here, additionally, Mr. Taylor performs not …
Lifting the Bandstand
First time ever on CD, never before published Cecil Taylor Quintet feat. Harri Sjostrom - sax, Tristan Honsinger - cello, Teppo Hauta-aho - bass, and Paul Lovens - drums. The legendary band recorded live at Tampere Jazz Happening 1998. Recorded October 30.1998 at Tampere Jazz Happening by the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE at Tampere Jazz Happening. Originally produced for YLE by Veli- Pekka Heinonen. Final mix by Patrick Römer and Harri Sjöström + Paul Lovens. Mastering by Patrick Römer of Un…
Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited
Taylor was quickly saddled with a reputation for being unswinging. He often danced before a recital to prove that you could indeed express the music physically. Indeed, almost the only way to appreciate this music is to dance to it, as I invariably do. It isn't a spectacle that needs to be shared with others, but in Taylor's absence can I invite you to find his remarkable essay and let it enter your head before you take the floor. Don't think about this music. Feel it, and let it move you. Litte…
At AngelicA 2000 Bologna
In the year 2000, when Bologna was European Capital of Culture, AngelicA Festival, then in its tenth edition, invited Cecil Taylor to hold a concert at the Teatro Comunale - Opera House of Bologna: solo, with his piano (and his dance and his poetry readings) he opened an evening that ended with a rendition of the luminous piece Coptic Light by Morton Feldman performed by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, conducted by Jurjen Hempel. This unusual juxtaposition (not in the history of th…
Duets 1992
Trumpeter Bill Dixon and pianist Cecil Taylor, friends going back to their Truman-era school days, associated copiously in nearly every artistic fashion -- except making music together. Duets is their only meeting in studio apart from both artists appearing on Taylor's 1966 landmark Blue Note LP, Conquistador. In 1992 they made the briefest summer festival tour to Italy and France, budgeting in two additional days for this recording session. That musical output was prepared for a release that wa…
Ailanthus/Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions of 2 Root Songs
2010 release. Deluxe collector's item issued in a limited edition of 475 (numbered). 81 minutes of duet recordings with Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley. The pieces were selected by the musicians from ten hours recorded during their two weeks at New York's Village Vanguard in 2008. Comes in a gatefold sleeve; Accompanied by museum-grade folio, including exclusive original poetry by Cecil Taylor and paintings by Tony Oxley. Personnel: Frank Lowe - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute, voice, perc…
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