In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor

In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor
Philip Freeman
344 Pages
ISBN: # ISBN 978-3-9553-261-9
Wolke Verlag
2024

The sign over the nightclub says it all: Cecil Taylor starts where Thelonious Monk leaves off. Jazz has never really come to terms with Cecil Taylor. Comparisons with Bartok, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Berg are misleading. Does Taylor have a direct line to earlier pianists in the jazz tradition? To earlier composers? Is he Third Stream? When Taylor emerged in the '50s there was no obvious way to relate to his work. The jazz avant-garde did not really exist. Ornette Coleman was still playing in blues bands in Texas. The pigeonholes that would have accommodated Taylor had not been constructed. Freeman's book is essential. Taylor has always seemed to be an Everest for listeners, and he presents an even greater challenge to a biographer. Philip Freeman acknowledges his early bewilderment with Taylor's music, which eventually led to exhilaration, exultation and ultimately this book, the first full-length biography of the pianist.

Freeman is keen to avoid the everyday minutiae of Taylor's life; he concentrates on the music. Occasionally fascinating non-musical details emerge, for instance, the pianist's love of a diet of champagne and sorbet, his love of nightclubbing. Eventually, this is a book about one of the 20th century's greatest creative minds, a man who unshackled his own music from all external limitations.

The lack of acceptance in the early days is detailed by Freeman but the data he mentions about gigs and recordings indicate that Taylor's refusal to compromise did not necessarily result in a complete bar to employment.

Buell Neidlinger, who played bass with Taylor for several years, portrayed the situation accurately: "There is no economic advantage to playing music like that. It's completely unsalable in the nightclubs because of the fact that each composition lasts, or could last, an hour and a half. Bar owners aren't interested in this, because if there's one thing they hate to see it's a bunch of people sitting around open mouthed with their brains absolutely paralyzed by the music, unable to call for the waiter. They want to sell drinks. But when Cecil's playing, people are likely to tell the waiter to shut up and be still."

Bill Dixon, in consultation with Taylor and Michael Mantler formed a collective organisation, the Jazz Composers Guild under the philosophy that you can't kill an organization, but you can kill an individual. Members of the Guild included Taylor, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Jon Winter, John Tchicai, Carla Bley and Paul Bley. The racial makeup of the Guild demonstrates clearly the inclusive nature of the philosophies of many members of the avant-garde. Bill Dixon explained "White jazz musicians are treated significantly better, but not much better—that's why they're in the Guild—than Black musicians." Weekly concerts were organized, and it was planned that recording and nightclub contracts would be negotiated through the Guild rather than by individual members. The Guild fell apart when Shepp began individual contract negotiations with Impulse Records.

There were long periods when Taylor did not enter recording studios and his discography consists of club or concert recordings. The book is particularly valuable in its descriptions of many of those events.

On the occasions when Taylor was recorded in conventional studios, Freeman writes about various conflicts. Rudy Van Gelder comes across as an obsessive martinet who would not allow anyone to touch any microphone: everything was sacrosanct. John Snyder, founder of Artists House Records, was very keen to record Taylor. A session with Dewey Redman was set up even though Taylor did not like Redman's playing and he even turned the sound of Redman in his headphones off. However, Taylor was happy with the playing of Elvin Jones on the eventual album Momentum Space (Verve Records, 1999).

One session which shows the temperamental diva tendency of Taylor was when at first he refused to work with Max Roach and there was quarreling about the size of his fee. There were many differences with Mary Lou Williams, where both artists had their own agendas.

Places are important in Taylor's life. Scandinavia, the Cafe Montmartre in Copenhagen where a crucial session was created and a meeting with Albert Ayler enlivened Taylor's music. The New York of the '60s was when Taylor was involved with the literary and art groups, among them: Franz Kline, Jack Kerouac, Larry Rivers, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima. The late '80s in Berlin were crucial. FMP boss Jost Geber and Peter Brötzmann brought Taylor to Berlin in 1986. Two years later they invited him back for a month's concerts. Eventually, that resulted in the box of 11 CDs Complete Cecil Taylor in Berlin '88 (FMP, 1989). Five of the discs in the Berlin box are piano and percussion duets (each with a different drummer). One of the drummers was Louis Moholo-Moholo and one was drummer Tony Oxley. The Tony Oxley Cecil Taylor duo started a relationship that lasted for three decades.

Throughout the book Freeman draws on the work of many critics and commentators: Amiri Baraka, Whitney Balliett, Gary Giddins, Howard Mandel, A.B. Spellman, Nate Chinen and Valerie Wilmer. Stanley Crouch manages to upset Taylor as he had done with Miles Davis but for different reasons.

Taylor resisted the idea that he was influenced by anyone except, perhaps, Duke Ellington. Freeman writes that Ellington was idolised in Taylor's boyhood home so, perversely, Taylor refused to comply. Eventually, the power of Ellington impressed him and that influence can be detected in his playing and in his composing.

Taylor's adventures in academia are detailed. Taylor was as uncompromising in his teaching as he was in his playing. He taught courses in Black Music at the University of Wisconsin and Antioch College. When John Cage gave a lecture at the university, Taylor was so angry that few of his students attended. Taylor failed 70 percent of that cohort.

Eventually, prizes came Taylor's way: the Kyoto, the Guggenheim, the MacArthur. Unfortunately, Taylor was moving into dementia and he almost lost everything from the Kyoto prize as he was swindled by a "friend." Towards the end he was unable to cope with everyday realities and he had to have caregivers to ensure his routine needs were met.

At the heart of the book is the intense, volcanic music that Taylor gave to the world, in an unceasing flow across his life, Freeman advises: "To really appreciate any single piece of Cecil Taylor's music, is to listen to it over and over. Let it hit you like a flood the first time. Wash yourself in the waves of the notes. Then come back—a day later, perhaps. Play It again and this time listen as carefully as possible. Focus on his opening gambits, and trace their paths through what follows. . .If—when-you get lost, listen, a third time. A fourth. A fifth. At some point, it will unfold before you like a flower, and the beauty of his conception will be fully audible."

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