Cecil Taylor - Unit Structures - help me understand

Very interesting... But just seems completely random to me...

"Enter, Evening (Soft Line Structure)" seems to make some musical sense to me... honestly... the rest just seems chaotic...

I like the "sound" of it... like the hustle and bustle of a city... I like the squeaking saxophones...

this interview with Garry Giddins about Taylor might help >> http://www.jerryjazzmusic...aylor.html

or not

dilwithers said:

this interview with Garry Giddins about Taylor might help >> http://www.jerryjazzmusic...aylor.html

or not

You hear this about many artists that play in the Avant-Garde or Free Jazz style.

I've said this before but if you actually research these artist's backgrounds you'll find that they have a firm foundation in "traditional" playing. Hell, Cecil Taylor studied at the New England Conservatory. So this would demonstrate that he does have a solid understanding of musical rules before he decided to create some new ones.

Although I don't claim to "understand" everything they're playing, I trust the fact that they know what they're doing based on the firm foundation they've laid earlier in their careers via either education and/or past playing experience.

I guess if you grow up with it as part of your musical palette (which luckily I did), it doesn't sound strange or odd at all. It's just another form of music.
However I agree with Giddins that listening to Music As Art does require a different set of listening skills.




*Thanks dilwithers for the Giddins link.

A few of my favorite quotes from the interview...

"I was told by someone once that they heard Wynton Marsalis on the radio talking about me, and he said that the trouble with Giddins is that he only listens emotionally. I think Wynton is exactly right, and that may be a failing of mine, but that is what I want from music. If it doesn't move me, I just don't give a shit."



"I feel silly saying something so obvious, but I often encounter people who are offended by Taylor or Ornette Coleman or any cutting-edge musicians because they think that they are leading by example and putting everything else down and saying this is the way jazz is going to be. It's not true. No one says or believes that. Cecil Taylor is a fan of Errol Garner. But he created a music that reflects the world he knows. If his generation had done nothing but recycle Charlie Parker cliches, jazz would have become museum music, a Dixieland music. To me, "Dixieland" is like what "Chinatown" means in the movie Chinatown, where it becomes a metaphor for "leave it alone." "Dixieland" is this world where nothing ever changes -- not the clothing, not the music. Everything is the same -- it is a tourist attraction. The whole idea of music is that what is great remains great forever, but there has to be somebody moving it along to explore the next moment."


"That reminds me of how I felt when I borrowed my first jazz album. I was about thirteen, a couple of years before I actually connected with jazz. I had been listening to rock and roll and classical. So I put this jazz record on while my mother was making dinner in the kitchen, and she asked me who I was listening to. She said it sounded like they are tuning up, which is what it sounded like to me. I couldn't make head or tail of it once the theme ended. And, you know who it was? It was Cannonball Adderley. So, if you don't have an ear for it, it is very easy to question yourself about what they are doing, it truly may sound as if they are just playing notes. That Cannonball record was actually one of the most melodic albums he ever made -- The Cannonball Adderley Quintet In Chicago, with Coltrane -- but at that time in my life, it was incomprehensible. So, it doesn't at all surprise me that people have that response to Taylor. It is just one of the reasons why we need more jazz education, because this music is not in our lives and we don't know how to listen to it."



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 7/30/09 11:27am]

Thanks tA. Very interesting. I just watched a video interview with Wynton Marsalis that I posted here:

http://prince.org/msg/8/315083

He talks a little about his feelings towards avant-guarde jazz...

The structures don't have to make logical sense to be appealing. Free music is about playing the emotion as a pure thing, not constricted by key or meter or traditional harmony or anything in particular. I find the best way to listen to this stuff is to just kind of let it wash over you and let the images come as they will. It's almost like meditation but louder.

theAudience said:

NDRU said:

bobzilla77 said:

...

A reviewer once remarked about Cecil Taylor:

" You'll believe a piano can scream...."




seriously, though, you're on point about the whole "deconstruction" thing...but most listeners aren't gonna get that free jazz players are taking everything that they've learned and finally breaking through that into something else...most people just hear the noise...

but it does beg the question--- at which point does deconstructed music just become chaos, just a wall of noise? And is it ultimately up to the individual listener to make some sort of personal sense of it all, or dismiss it, like a lot of free, abstract art, as "something my three-Year old could do"?




...

paligap said:

...

A reviewer once remarked about Cecil Taylor:

" You'll believe a piano can scream...."




seriously, though, you're on point about the whole "deconstruction" thing...but most listeners aren't gonna get that free jazz players are taking everything that they've learned and finally breaking through that into something else...most people just hear the noise...

but it does beg the question--- at which point does deconstructed music just become chaos, just a wall of noise? And is it ultimately up to the individual listener to make some sort of personal sense of it all, or dismiss it, like a lot of free, abstract art, as "something my three-Year old could do"?




...

coolcat said:

I guess I'm wondering... is there a new musical vocabulary here? Or is musical vocabulary being thrown out altogether...

coolcat said:

NDRU said:

theAudience said:

Although I don't claim to "understand" everything they're playing, I trust the fact that they know what they're doing based on the firm foundation they've laid earlier in their careers via either education and/or past playing experience.

I agree with this take. I know that getting into weirder jazz took me a while, but I went into it with some faith that there was something to get. And like learning a new language, you surround yourself with it for a while and it begins to make some sense.

It's basically the same with any challenging artist, musical or otherwise. If you appreciate the early work, and they did not get brain damage, then we can assume that they did not lose it but are simply more advanced than us. I can learn to appreciate it, admit I don't understand, but I can't just dismiss it outright.

As James Joyce said in response to criticism about Finnegan's Wake "it took me 15 years to write it, it should take you 15 years to read it"

NDRU said:

paligap said:

...

A reviewer once remarked about Cecil Taylor:

" You'll believe a piano can scream...."




seriously, though, you're on point about the whole "deconstruction" thing...but most listeners aren't gonna get that free jazz players are taking everything that they've learned and finally breaking through that into something else...most people just hear the noise...

but it does beg the question--- at which point does deconstructed music just become chaos, just a wall of noise? And is it ultimately up to the individual listener to make some sort of personal sense of it all, or dismiss it, like a lot of free, abstract art, as "something my three-Year old could do"?




...

I think they are trying to almost do exactly that--play like a three year old would.

Well, let's say the pure emotional expression of a three year old combined with the technical mastery of an adult.

paligap said:

NDRU said:

paligap said:

NDRU said:

exactly! I was just talking to a horn player Saturday and had this same discussion. He was discussing these jams that he invited me to, and I said I was intimidated by playing with jazz players. He was saying I should think about when I first picked up an instrument and banged on it or played one single note and was thrilled about it.

He was saying that that was more of the spirit of these particular jams. Not playing right, or worrying about structure or impressing people or being cool, but just enjoying playing music and playing whatever you felt.

Sounds great!!! Are you going?




...

paligap said:

NDRU said:

But they played one or two songs before we left and they were jazz standards that I didn't know. I never could have faked my way through it!

theAudience said:

NDRU said:

But they played one or two songs before we left and they were jazz standards that I didn't know. I never could have faked my way through it!

I know that feeling. Pretty scary.
Sometimes your ear can get you through it, other times you just have to learn them.

Or learn a couple and when they call you up ask to play them.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Are there any jazz records that are jam sessions... but not free jazz... I mean, there's no pre-planned song... but they're still trying to be in harmony...

NDRU said:

Learn songs? Never!

I once played bass in a jam and they called out Killer Joe, which is basically very simple...until you get to the bridge. Not fun, but since it didn't kill me I guess you could say I'm stronger for it.

theAudience said:

NDRU said:

Learn songs? Never!

I once played bass in a jam and they called out Killer Joe, which is basically very simple...until you get to the bridge. Not fun, but since it didn't kill me I guess you could say I'm stronger for it.

Great tune.

Regarding the bridge, if I remember this right...

Em9-A7#5
Ebm9-Ab13
A9-Ab9
Em9-A13

...Not really that difficult for bass.

On guitar, it's the voicings you want to get straight.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

NDRU said:

coolcat said:

Are there any jazz records that are jam sessions... but not free jazz... I mean, there's no pre-planned song... but they're still trying to be in harmony...

coolcat said:

coolcat said:

Are there any jazz records that are jam sessions... but not free jazz... I mean, there's no pre-planned song... but they're still trying to be in harmony...

bump...

Thanks NDRU. I like those examples.

Here's one from prog-rock supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment:

Hmmm. I actually find it a bit odd that people would feel relieved upon been granted the information that musicians like Cecil Taylor actually "knew" what they were doing. Does the music somehow start sounding different to people's ears once they'll find out that the performer has, e.g., attended Juilliard?

I would just advice to listen to the texture of the sound, the nuances and the accents. I don't personally find Cecil Taylor's stuff as interesting in the long run as the music by electronic experimental musicians, because the piano is still always going to sound like a piano. Even if you would kick it.

novabrkr said: