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Cecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts
by Mike Jurkovic
Another insanely good Record Store Day release from Elemental Music, Fragments, The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts, is available as a limited-edition, 180-gram, 3-LP gatefold set or as your standard 2-CD version, but truth be told and told plainly, any version will serve one well. Talk about rumble in the jungle. Fragments, The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts pushes at you like a gang fight on the 49-minute “Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington Evening Set Version." ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts
by Jack Kenny
Hosting a recording by Cecil Taylor represents a new departure for producer Zev Feldman. He is candid about the challenge: “Words fail me to describe the great genius of Cecil Taylor and I could never do him justice, but luckily we have Phil Freeman's erudite words." Freeman contributes a substantial essay to the release. Even after fifty years, Taylor's music remains dense, unrelenting, forceful, and challenging. Time has not diminished its impact. The glorious vivacity is undimmed.
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts
by Joshua Weiner
"On one level you can look at him as one of the grandfathers of the free jazz tradition," says pianist Matthew Shipp of Cecil Taylor in the generous booklet included with Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts, a three-LP set released by Elemental Music for Record Store Day 2026 (CD and digital releases will also follow). “But on the other hand...(h)e was very insistent that he came out of a certain tradition, and he talked about Ellington, Monk, and ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor Unit: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts
by Dan McClenaghan
Cecil Taylor, a pioneer of free jazz, pared down his Cecil Taylor Unit ensemble for a trip through Europe to partake in a 15-date tour in late 1969, in support of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the Miles Davis Quintet. This foray was billed as the Newport Jazz Festival In Europe. Taylor's Unit of the day--Taylor on piano, Sam Rivers on reeds, Jimmy Lyons on alto sax and Andrew Cyrille in the drummer's chair--sounded nothing like the elegance and swing ...
Continue ReadingJimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea (Jimmy Lyons)
by John Sharpe
Alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons was underappreciated even at the height of his powers, but to those with ears attuned to the radical innovations of the loft jazz era, he was a galvanizing presence. That his legacy remains under-lit is due in part to his long-standing tenure in Cecil Taylor's incandescent orbit. Lyons was more than a foil; he was Taylor's most empathetic interlocutor, the tether to bebop logic amid Taylor's eruptive torrents. But a fatal cocktail of perfectionism ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Live at Fat Tuesday's February 10, 1980
by Giuseppe Segala
Nella collana First Visit di ezz-thetics, dedicata a registrazioni storiche rimaste inedite fino a ora, l'etichetta svizzera Hat Hut Records pubblica il terzo CD di Live at Fat Tuesday's, completando così la documentazione degli straordinari concerti che videro impegnato il sestetto Unit di Cecil Taylor a New York dall'8 al 10 febbraio 1980. Come nelle precedenti pubblicazioni, It Is in the Brewing Luminous, uscita nel 1981, e Live At Fat Tuesday's February 9, 1980 First Visit, diffusa nel ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Live At Fat Tuesday's February 9, 1980 First Visit
by Giuseppe Segala
Nel periodo di passaggio tra gli anni Settanta e Ottanta, Cecil Taylor è stato oggetto di numerose attenzioni da parte di etichette europee, che ne hanno lodevolmente documentato esibizioni dal vivo assai significative. Tra queste, alcune presentano la formazione Unit in differenti organici strumentali, che esprimono con dovizia un momento di impeto formidabile e di incredibile intesa creativa. Ne sono esempio le registrazioni in Germania del giugno 1978 Live in the Black Forest e One Too Many Salty Swift and ...
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