Cecil Taylor Helped ‘Jazz Advance’ Towards Freedom
One of the greatest of jazz titans just passed away Friday, April 5th, shortly after his 89th birthday. He was at once enormously influential and at the same relatively unknown outside of jazz circles, primarily the avant-garde outer concentric bands.
His name was Cecil Taylor, a pianist of remarkable depth and scope. His jazz career started when he worked with Steve Lacy, a soprano saxophonist also closely identified with the free jazz movement. His first album, with Lacy, was issued in 1956: Jazz Advance.
He played great jazz standards, but increasingly he turned his playing and composing to free jazz. His percussive style allowed for great creative explorations, inventive improvisations, and polyrhythmic music; he was, in the true definition of the word, unique. He absorbed Art Tatum and Stockhausen, performed in ensembles with Gil Evans and with the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, worked with Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, and played solo and in bands.
He played to the beat of a different drummer — and sometimes no drummer other than the one in his mind. And there were some very different drummers, including Sunny Murray, Andrew Cyrille, and Tony Oxley.
And Cecil Taylor recorded more than six dozen albums during his lifetime in jazz.
Long live Cecil Taylor.