Cecil Taylor Music

Mr. Taylor plays with an intensity and insight that is both rare and extraordinary. Mr. Taylor exudes creative energy and his virtuosity is unmatched. Because his music is difficult, it has become easier dismiss, rather than expend the energy required to fully appreciate his contribution to the tradition of music. Not for the faint of heart.

I finally picked up Incarnation after several years of thinking about it, to add to my collection of well over 50 CT recordings. Cecil is right up there among my very favorite musicians, but as someone with a fairly extensive discography, I do find myself increasingly feeling like CT has settled into his idiom and that his playing hasn't changed all that drastically since the 1980's -- to some extent, he is playing the same "song" and so I'm always looking for evidence that he has something new to say, or for a new recording that adds something in the way of novel accompaniement. It's this niche that I hoped Incarnation would fill, since it includes not only the return of Andrew Cyrille (CT's core drummer in the '60's and 70's), but also cellist Tristan Honsinger (who has recorded with CT since the late '80s), and the new addition of Franky Douglas on guitar -- only the second time ever CT recorded with a guitarist (the first being a duet with Derek Bailey that I found less than inspiring).

Incarnation is a live FMP recording from the Total Music Meeting in Berlin in 1999. There are three movements, "Focus" (32:32), "Carnation" (19:32), and Cartouche" (25:01) that make up a continuous concert without interval applause for a total of 77 minutes. It really is very interesting music and it does offer a nice variation from CT's denser Unit dates, his work with the Feel Trio, or his solo concerts. Andrew Cyrille's work is distinctive here with frequent use of hand drums as well as toms or tympani, the use of space, and communication with CT in a give-and-take fashion for which they are well known. CT is overall on the restrained side here, also generous with space and mostly playing in an unhurried fashion. As far as the stringmen, Douglas really takes on the role of decorator, or percussionist rather than drummer if you prefer a musical analogy. He adds splashes of color and textured effects -- sometimes adding a pluck suggesting a reverbed faucet-drip, or elsewhere mixing in a jagged run with CT's pianistics. On "Focus," he gets into some cool rubber-bandy bass-lines underneath the others that transitions at the 30" mark to him strumming a vampy rhythm that's unheard of anywhere else in CT's recordings -- so refreshing to hear, but unfortunately it ends all too soon (one wonders what the maestro's response was). Douglas is then largely absent from the middle movement, which sounds the most like usual CT territory, but he makes a substantial return in the third movement in the way that I wish Derek Baily had on Pleistozaen Mit Wasser. It really takes CT bowing out near the end to get him into an assertive duet with Honsinger, but for the most part Douglas is not keeping pace or dueling with CT the way I keep wishing a guitarist would. Instead, that role largely falls to Honsinger on this album, with his arco sounding like a raspy buzz as he zig-zags over the strings. I'm a big fan of Honsinger and the other cellists and violinists who've sparred with CT, so that's no complaint, but I do wish Douglas were more prominent.

But this is really a very good concert with much to like and differentiate from other CT dates, whether the reunion with Cyrille (credited here as a "special guest"), Honsinger's cello work, or CT's steadiness throughout, not to mention a fair amount of vocalism and poetics. Overall a great ensemble feel with shades of light and dark and things in between.

I finally picked up Incarnation after several years of thinking about it, to add to my collection of well over 50 CT recordings. Cecil is right up there among my very favorite musicians, but as someone with a fairly extensive discography, I do find myself increasingly feeling like CT has settled into his idiom and that his playing hasn't changed all that drastically since the 1980's -- to some extent, he is playing the same "song" and so I'm always looking for evidence that he has something new to say, or for a new recording that adds something in the way of novel accompaniement. It's this niche that I hoped Incarnation would fill, since it includes not only the return of Andrew Cyrille (CT's core drummer in the '60's and 70's), but also cellist Tristan Honsinger (who has recorded with CT since the late '80s), and the new addition of Franky Douglas on guitar -- only the second time ever CT recorded with a guitarist (the first being a duet with Derek Bailey that I found less than inspiring).

Incarnation is a live FMP recording from the Total Music Meeting in Berlin in 1999. There are three movements, "Focus" (32:32), "Carnation" (19:32), and Cartouche" (25:01) that make up a continuous concert without interval applause for a total of 77 minutes. It really is very interesting music and it does offer a nice variation from CT's denser Unit dates, his work with the Feel Trio, or his solo concerts. Andrew Cyrille's work is distinctive here with frequent use of hand drums as well as toms or tympani, the use of space, and communication with CT in a give-and-take fashion for which they are well known. CT is overall on the restrained side here, also generous with space and mostly playing in an unhurried fashion. As far as the stringmen, Douglas really takes on the role of decorator, or percussionist rather than drummer if you prefer a musical analogy. He adds splashes of color and textured effects -- sometimes adding a pluck suggesting a reverbed faucet-drip, or elsewhere mixing in a jagged run with CT's pianistics. On "Focus," he gets into some cool rubber-bandy bass-lines underneath the others that transitions at the 30" mark to him strumming a vampy rhythm that's unheard of anywhere else in CT's recordings -- so refreshing to hear, but unfortunately it ends all too soon (one wonders what the maestro's response was). Douglas is then largely absent from the middle movement, which sounds the most like usual CT territory, but he makes a substantial return in the third movement in the way that I wish Derek Baily had on Pleistozaen Mit Wasser. It really takes CT bowing out near the end to get him into an assertive duet with Honsinger, but for the most part Douglas is not keeping pace or dueling with CT the way I keep wishing a guitarist would. Instead, that role largely falls to Honsinger on this album, with his arco sounding like a raspy buzz as he zig-zags over the strings. I'm a big fan of Honsinger and the other cellists and violinists who've sparred with CT, so that's no complaint, but I do wish Douglas were more prominent.

But this is really a very good concert with much to like and differentiate from other CT dates, whether the reunion with Cyrille (credited here as a "special guest"), Honsinger's cello work, or CT's steadiness throughout, not to mention a fair amount of vocalism and poetics. Overall a great ensemble feel with shades of light and dark and things in between.

This edition of The Cecil Taylor Unit, featured here on the album of the same name, is definitely the pianist's greatest group. This Unit, consisting of Jimmy Lyons on alto sax, Raphe Malik on trumpet, Ramsey Ameen on violin, Sirone on bass and Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums, also recorded the two classic albums "3 Phasis" and "One Too Many Salty Swift And Not Goodbye" (see my review). "The Cecil Taylor Unit" features three extended compositions -- "Idut" and "Serdab" each logging in at over 14 minutes, and "Holiday En Masque" the longest at more than 29 minutes. As with other Taylor recordings, this music is very creative, involved, complex, distinctive, and will be difficult to listen to for many out there. But those who can get passed the "noise" will be rewarded with some very personal musical revelations. A final note about this album, for all those people out there who think that the NEA was just used to fund controversial artists like Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethrope, this album would not have been possible without grants from the NEA and the Rockefeller Foundation.

A friend of mine, after listening to this album, said that it was, "Rude... rude and beautiful."

Which I think is the best description of Mr. Taylor's work that I've ever heard. I was lucky enough to catch the late 70's-through-late-80's Units live quite a few times- and in all honesty, the full impact of a Taylor performance *can't* really be captured by recording technology, even as it is now.

But this stunning album comes very close to doing so.