Avante-garde pianist and poet Cecil Taylor passed away at his Brooklyn, NY home on Thursday at the age of 89. His death was confirmed by his legal guardian, Adam Wilner. Frequently acknowledged as one of the pioneers of jazz, his often erratic, physically impassioned, sonically complex, and rhythmically layered approach to piano set him apart from many of the players of his time.
Notes NPR, “Taylor’s legacy is his sound: He played the piano with a furious attack, using the entire range of the instrument to create a unique musical language. His approach inspired other musicians and he remained true to it, even though it meant a lifetime of financial struggles.”
As New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff writes in his obituary for Taylor, “At the center of his art was that dazzling physicality and the percussiveness of his playing — his deep, serene, Ellingtonian chords and hummingbird attacks above middle C — which held true well into his 80s.”
Ratliff previously summed up Taylor’s forward-thinking uniqueness to NPR, explaining:
Cecil is of jazz, and also beyond it. … The thing that Cecil was doing in 1959 or whatever, the stuff that had basically a steady beat, but was pushing out on all sides with strange harmonies and strange dynamics — you know, we’re doing stuff now that’s more like that. And to think that at that point in the late ’50s, Cecil Taylor was just saying, ‘Yeah, this is the right way to play, this is the way to do it,’ is truly amazing.
Below, you can listen to Taylor’s 1960 album, The World of Cecil Taylor, and get a taste of his famed improvisational abilities with a solo clip from 1981 free jazz documentary, Imagine the Sound:
Cecil Taylor – The World of Cecil Taylor [1960]
[via avishv]
Cecil Taylor – Free Improvisation #3
[Video: VegetativeHorse]
[H/T NPR]