Cecil Taylor

From the mid-1950s onward, pianist Cecil Taylor earned a reputation as one of jazz’s boldest and most experimental improvisers. Although he occasionally used standards early on as springboards for exploration, he became known chiefly for his frequently avant-garde original pieces. His fiercely atonal and percussive technique essentially transformed the piano into a drum set, built around tightly packed sonic clusters executed with extraordinary precision and stamina across extended performances.

Born in 1929 and raised in Corona, Queens, New York City, Taylor began piano studies at age six and later attended the New York College of Music and the New England Conservatory. Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck ranked among his earliest influences, yet his voice emerged as singular from the outset. Initial engagements included work with bands led by Johnny Hodges and Hot Lips Page, but after he assembled his own quartet in the mid-1950s—originally comprising Steve Lacy on soprano, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles—he never again served as a sideman. The group held a six-week residency at the Five Spot Cafe in 1956 and appeared at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, documented by Verve, though steady employment proved elusive despite occasional releases such as the 1958 album Looking Ahead.

Taylor recorded prolifically for Candid in 1960 under Neidlinger’s name, by which point Archie Shepp had joined the quartet on tenor; the following year he periodically substituted in the production The Connection. By 1962 the lineup featured longtime associate Jimmy Lyons on alto and drummer Sunny Murray. After spending six months in Europe—where Albert Ayler briefly performed with the group, though no recordings exist—Taylor returned to the United States and encountered nearly a year without work, his music viewed as too radical even during the rise of free jazz. He co-founded the Jazz Composer’s Guild in 1964 and appeared on a 1968 release by the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra. Two especially uncompromising Blue Note sessions from the mid-1960s underscored another lean period.

Circumstances improved markedly beginning in the 1970s. Taylor held teaching posts for periods at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Antioch College, and Glassboro State College, while European tours grew frequent. A 1973 Guggenheim Fellowship eased his financial strains somewhat, and he performed at the White House in 1979 during Jimmy Carter’s administration. Recording activity also increased, producing albums such as Dark to Themselves in 1976 and Cecil Taylor Unit in 1979. He began integrating his distinctive poetry into performances around this time.

The death of longtime associate Jimmy Lyons in 1986 marked a significant loss, yet Taylor remained active for decades afterward, issuing recordings on hatART, Soul Note, Leo, and FMP, including For Olim in 1986, Always a Pleasure in 1993, and The Light of Corona in 1996. He formed a trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Tony Oxley. Throughout the 2000s he maintained a steady schedule, working regularly with various ensembles that encompassed both the trio and a big band. Never having altered his artistic direction, Taylor’s stature continued to rise in later years. He was the subject of the 2006 documentary All the Notes, received the Kyoto Prize for Music in 2013, and was honored with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2016 retrospective Open Plan: Cecil Taylor. On April 5, 2018, he died at his home in Brooklyn at the age of 89.