Cecil Taylor
He was such a giant, completely different, unique. An inspiration in myriad ways and one of my personal heroes. His concerts were events, utterly singular, exceeding any normal concert. His gestures - both musical and physical - challenged they way we perceive things, they are exercises in hearing and seeing, they demand for our complete presence. His sound was large, far-reaching, with the deepest sensibilities for shades and colors. He questioned the semantics of music with isolated movements, as if he would grab them out of the air, but if you listen longer they are consistent and create many references within the whole performance. His music is free from any definitions, sometimes impenetrably mysterious and in its fast stream of speed hard to keep up with. He combines sturdy intervalls and forces them up like a geysir with over the keyboard flying fingers, so vivid and virtuous. Does he want to release the living again? Shaking out the sedimented meanings in chords and scales to give them back their original entity?
He had a large record collection, listening to all kinds of music that spoke to him. He mentioned Fats Waller to be a big inspiration. "Every note he plays is distinct, with a space between them" (cited from Howard Mandel`s wonderful text "Cecil Taylor, Grand Passions"). In an interview I read, he said that he liked Aretha Franklin`s piano playing on "A Brand New Me" from her album "Young, Gifted and Black" very much. Since then I have listened to this song many times and I can clearly hear the connection with Cecil`s strong sense of rhythm. He was a drummer playing piano, a dancer circling around the piano, from time to time uttering cries and speaking out poems. His performances questioned everything regarding how to enter and to leave a stage.
He opened my ears, my eyes, all my senses and gives me again and again the courage to follow my own way.
"The point is really: Does music exist as a note, or does it take its point of beginning, its genesis, from someplace else? One of the distractions has been this idea of written music. It divides the senses, though some people might say it increases the options. But I mean if you look at a piece of music - notes - that means your eye must be directed outside the body." (also from Howard Mandel`s "Cecil Taylor, Grand Passions")
The above thought of Cecil Taylor will be the starting point of a longer text I am working on. This statement is of course debatable but in its core it opens up a whole new page. Exactly like Cecil Taylor`s music does for me and many of his listeners.