 |
|
07.03.09 Friday, March 9, 2007 Music of the Masters: Cecil Taylor Trio Cecil
Taylor (p, vocals and percussion) Rose Theatre, Lincoln
Center, NYC Source: Margaret Davis via CTR. No known recording exists.
07.03.10 Saturday, March 10, 2007 Music of the Masters: Cecil Taylor Trio Cecil
Taylor (p, vocals and percussion) Rose Theatre, Lincoln
Center, NYC Source: Margaret Davis via CTR. No known recording exists.
07.05.06 May 6, 2007 Cecil Taylor Trio Cecil
Taylor (p, vocals and percussion) Blue Note, NYC Two sets, 8 PM and 10:30 PM. Source: Marc Medwin review on http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/frontpage/001715.html . Henry Grimes interview from http://bluenotenyc.blogspot.com/2007/07/interview-with-henry-grimes-henry.html. No known recording exists. Review is as follows, copied and pasted from site linked above. One Man's Cecil by Marc Medwin* On May 6th, I was at the Blue Note to see Cecil Taylor’s New Aha 3 with Henry Grimes on bass and violin, and Pheeroan AkLaff in the drum chair. Andy Bey was in attendance as guest vocalist, and the group played two sets, one at 8:00 and one at 10:30 P.M. Since the late 1970s, the structured sections of Taylor’s compositions seem, in large part, to be built on repeated and arpeggiated intervals, replacing the more bare-bones chromaticism of Akisakila and Live in the Black Forest with lusher, more harmonically driven gestures. Brief and exclamatory still, each phrase is connected to the last by a quasi-tonal motion, hanging just at the edge of ready comprehensibility and logic. By Garden, this approach was fully developed, occurring simultaneously at several transpositions. More recently, as with the Willisau Concert, tonal centers are briefly discernable, and this was the case on May 6th. I am not certain that Taylor considers these triads in that way, serving those functions, but my classical training insists on separating the more clustered elements in any performance from their triadic counterparts. Grimes and AkLaff were all over even the slightest changes as the first set, an extended piece of approximately an hour and a half, swelled, crested and ebbed in the now familiar arcs. Whether on bass or violin, which he played frequently throughout the evening, Grimes would shadow Taylor, picking up on a choice motive and subjecting it to the torrents of ideas issuing from his own inwardly reflective yet persistent imagination. Grimes and AkLaff, the latter exuding intensity and energy, almost seemed to be anticipating the arrival of each “tonal” moment, rendering them two of Taylor’s finest collaborators in some time. Several bells and other objects he had placed inside the piano modified Taylor’s playing, approximating a prepared sound in the Cage manner. When drums and strings were at their highest in volume and energy, such subtleties were inaudible, as the music washed over the crowd in the almost unbearable yet exciting pandemonium that it was so unnerving to experience live. Andy Bey’s contributions were alternately thrilling and disappointing. His incredible ear sampled and held those moments where a note was repeated, and he hurtled around each harmonic suggestion with speed, drama and precision. Where the language veered into what I can only call abstraction, Bey continued in a vocabulary of precisely “Western” pitch, either unwilling or ill equipped to partake in the freedoms offered by piano or unfretted strings. Yet the second set was a mellower affair, Taylor’s own playing subdued and concentrated; Bey’s appearance part way through actually enlivened the trio, bringing back some of the adrenalin without which the group seemed to falter. Despite all manner of excitement, the most interesting music occurred at the beginning of the first set. Grimes and AkLaff emerged, playing soft repeating figures, non-tonally military invocations was how I heard them, and these wonderfully minimalistic utterances continued until Taylor entered, shaker in hand, and began to sing in his raspily alien voice. Off mic, it was strangely beautiful, almost resembling a bagpipe as Taylor added tones to the rhythmically textured angles of violin and drums. After some lines of poetry, Taylor began to work on the piano’s innards, as he did on his 1988 collaboration with Derek Bailey for FMP. It was as if an autoharp had been placed, softly, amongst rocks and crags, weaving velvet through a maze of metal. Without a change in the drum and violin patterns, Taylor began to incorporate the arpeggiated structures, and the effect was magical, two alien worlds, fully formed, colliding and somehow, miraculously, coexisting. Given the grandeur of those opening minutes, I felt some considerable disappointment as the more familiar trio interplay took root. Exhibited on countless releases, the energy was something to behold in a concert environment, but the absolute beauty and subtlety of the opening’s timbral interplay was lost. I was left pondering the question of development, of the artist’s duty to develop the language he/she invents, to modify it, expand it, and maybe, ultimately, to destroy it and begin again. This is by no means an imperative; just listen to Monk, for example, who found his voice by his thirtieth year, maybe even before, and spent his life honing his craft. The same might be said of Duke Ellington, whose radically differing versions of his standards, heavily reorchestrated, were as much refinements as evolutionary statements. Taylor’s forays into timbral glory at first set’s opener made me ache for him to continue along that path, to mine those freshest elements of what I was hearing, as he did with standards so many years ago. The opening of Student Studies hinted at similar tantalizations, and I was reminded of these by the Aha 3’s first 15 minutes on stage. It is obviously not my place to dictate how the master artist proceeds, but I felt that such a superb trio, capable of making such important music, might also have been used to realize the kind of discoveries upon which this music continues, I hope, to be predicated. # # # Marc Medwin (born in 1972) completed a B.A. in English at Ithaca College, then studied musicology at Eastman School of Music and, since the fall of 2OOO, has continued at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received his M.A. and is now writing a doctoral dissertation on the music of John Coltrane, 1965-67. Marc has also become increasingly active in the fields of performance and journalism, writing CD reviews and articles for print and online journals including "Dusted," "Bagatellen," "Cadence," and "All About Jazz," while performing regularly with several local free-jazz and electro-acoustic ensembles. He lives in North Carolina with his wife Suki and 2-year-old daughter Sara. Interview with Grimes where he describes playing with Cecil at this gig: How was your gig last night at the Blue Note with Cecil Taylor? The press was scrambling to hear what the trio would sound like with vocalist Andy Bey. It was a full audience and they were very responsive. They were able to enjoy the music just as it is, and the responses were fantastic. The music that we played was really enjoyable. Andy Bey was great, and so were Cecil and Pheeroan. Professionally it wasn’t that different than any other gig, really. We all knew what we were doing and we just were playing some unusual stuff, with Cecil and Andy in the same set. Actually, a long time ago I went to Sunday School with Andy Bey! It seemed strange that it should come up at this time, but I looked at this guy Andy, and I swore I was seeing someone that used to be in Sunday School with me. He was a South Jersey guy and I was from Philly, so it’s possible.
June
1, 2007 Jane
Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts Source: Margaret Davis via CTR: "Thanks to Nate Dorward for details." No known recording exists.
July 8, 2007 Cecil Taylor
Trio + Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton,as,ss,sopranino,contrabass-cl (RADIO VERSION) 1 Announcement Speaker 0:16 49:29 1. Set: 54:34 2, Set: 40:18 Source:
blumenja@web.de via CTR, digital audio recording exist. other
info: "on flickr, "mapsadaisical" has an impression on
this performance. John
Fordham Guardian The
refurbished Royal Festival Hall got its first taste of jazz The
rest of the evening had Taylor, Parker, Oxley and multi-saxist Coleman's
gig was just as fast-moving, though with more references to Taylor
and Coleman are unequivocally still there for the music, Having
been to both gigs i would personally give the Taylor/Braxton An opening duo between Taylor and drummer Tony Oxley revealed the years that they have played together and the understanding that they have developed—an object lesson in tight sympathetic improvisation, with Oxley shadowing the piano, commenting, interjecting and goading, demonstrating that he is the perfect drummer for Taylor. After an engrossing solo bass set from William Parker that explored the instrument’s outer limits, the full quartet appeared. Playing a prolonged improvisation, the quartet was an ensemble of four equals, each member vital to the success of the whole. Opening with a thrillingly dense free-form swirl of sound, structure gradually emerged from it, like life from a primordial swamp. Taylor and Braxton sounded like they were made for each other: neither dominated, each being prepared to sit out or play a supportive role while the other was in the spotlight, but when they both let rip simultaneously, the creative sparks really flew.
Click
for larger image 07.07.09 July 9, 2007 Cecil
Taylor Trio + Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton,as,ss,sopranino,contrabass-cl
|
back to cecil sessionography home
yahoo
cecil taylor research group | webmutations music home
| email
(above image of cecil's hands used with permission by suso
navarette)