This collection of some 40 pieces brought together by writer, translator, and filmmaker Valente offers up an eclectic, daunting overview of the life and career of the singular free-jazz composer, performer, and poet Cecil Taylor. As Gary Giddins puts it in his fine essay, \u201cThe Avant-Gardist Who Came in From the Cold,\u201d Taylor inherited a tradition of \u201cunending discovery.\u201d Marc Edwards contributes a personal piece on his \u201ctransformative experience\u201d playing drums with Taylor. John Bruschini describes Taylor\u2019s music as \u201calways controversial, groundbreaking, and revolutionary.\u201d Valente himself provides a thoughtful piece on Taylor\u2019s many drummers. The collection then shifts to Taylor\u2019s poetry. In \u201cCecil Taylor and the Commitment to Poetry\u201d David Grundy writes that poetry was \u201cwhere he theorized his artistic conception\u201d\u2014and, perhaps, it was where he artistically dealt with his homosexuality and his blackness: \u201cWhen asked if he was gay, Taylor responded, \u2018Do you think a three-letter word defines the complexity of my humanity? I avoid the trap of easy definition.\u201d Taylor never published a book in his lifetime. Some commentary appeared as simple liner notes. He often read with the distinguished poet Amiri Baraka. Grundy believes that Taylor\u2019s poetry was \u201cpart of a total way of living, devotional and expansive.\u201d Valente also includes a handy biblio-discography of Taylor\u2019s writings that fans will greatly appreciate. Will Alexander collects a number of Taylor-esque poems about Taylor written by others, including one by Anne Waldman. Mark Miller\u2019s two essays are accessible windows into the Taylor world and mind. A piece on Taylor\u2019s highly unusual \u201calphabet notation\u201d and dance is especially illuminating, as is Matthew Goodheart\u2019s \u201cThe Foundation of Taylor\u2019s Music.\u201d The issue of the relationship between his written and improvised material is nicely handled by Alex Ward. Ted Panken\u2019s closing interviews with Taylor and other musicians provide insights into the thinking of this \u201cmaster pianist and meta-musician-poet-dancer.\u201d <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This collection of some 40 pieces brought together by writer, translator, and filmmaker Valente offers up an eclectic, daunting overview of the life and career of the singular free-jazz composer, performer, and poet Cecil Taylor. As Gary Giddins puts it in his fine essay, \u201cThe Avant-Gardist Who Came in From the Cold,\u201d Taylor inherited a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}