feature photo: Paula Court
It was 2016 and the eighty-seven year old free jazz icon Cecil Taylor hadn’t retired but by this time his performances were infrequent and selective; in the prior five years he averaged about one a year. However, he now seemed eager to pick up the pace as he put together a new ensemble comprising of Okkung Lee (cello), Harri Sjostrom (soprano saxophone, sopranino) and Jackson Krall (drums). Tony Oxley, a longtime cohort of Taylor’s, is the final member and curiously, the master drummer is handling electronics instead. Taylor even christened this band the “Cecil Taylor New Unit,” a significant gesture as none of his bands were formally billed as a ‘Unit’ (i.e., Cecil Taylor Unit) since apparently the early 80s.
And so this collection of musicians played at the Whitney Museum in New York on April 23, 2016 with Taylor — who by many accounts — intending this to be the start of more concerts with his latest ensemble. However, it was not to be. Taylor’s failing health and possibly other factors made any further performances impossible and Taylor passed away just less than two years later.
This final recital was recorded, but that recording hadn’t been publicly available until now. Words and Music – the last bandstand (Fundacja S?uchaj) is now among us thanks to Jay Sanders, who produced this concert and had this keepsake in his archives.
Even the best musicians can lose their way at an advanced age, playing somewhat listless and falling back heavily on their standard cliches, but Taylor does none of that here. From the start, he plays with purpose, and his band — even for this first and only time together — can sense where’s he’s headed. That in turn is why they are able to complement him so well.
Taylor, as he’d done so many times before, begins with a pretty progression that he composed spontaneously (of course) and shifts in a natural manner to something more abrasive and less tonal. That true gift still intact at this point is how he makes it all acceptable as part of the same exploit, the same thought process.
While the old legend still played with the same passion and fire, the surrounding cast added new elements to his sound. Lee in particular stands out for deftly maneuvering her cello around the piano and making a compatible companion out of it. Sjöström on soprano sax offers a higher pitched tonal palette than, say, Jimmy Lyons could do on alto, and the Finnish reedist who is a veteran of the European free jazz scene strays further away from the jazz tradition than Lyons did.
About midway through the eighty-minute performance, Taylor executes the “words” part of the show, first as a soliloquy but the supporting players sneak their way into becoming part of the poetry recital with accompanying music derived instinctively.
Cecil Taylor set out to write the next chapter in his long, distinguished career and it turned out to be an epilogue. But the same drive that he possessed in the mid 1950s to lead jazz to alternative angles remained with him to his final performance. We long knew that Taylor was an intensely creative artist, and it’s remarkable to behold this intensity that never waned even at the end of a sixty-plus year career.
Words and Music – the last bandstand is available now, through Bandcamp.
| Image | Artist | Title | Format | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Cecil Taylor | Flashing Spirits | CD | Purchase Here |
 | Cecil Taylor | Cecil Taylor Unit | CD | Purchase Here |
 | Cecil Taylor | Unit Structures | Vinyl (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series) | Purchase Here |
 | Cecil Taylor | The Classic Albums | CD Box Set | Click Here |
 | Cecil Taylor | Willisau Concert | CD | Click Here |
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