Cecil Taylor - Live at the Cafe Montmartre 1963

Taylor had been a thorn in the modern US jazz world’s side since the mid 1950s with his uncompromising approach to music-making, but up until this live date recorded in Copenhagen by the Danish Debut label he’d not made the decisive steps into free playing that would revolutionise the very basis of jazz rhythm. Here, Taylor, Lyons and Murray race pell-mell into music without metric boundaries, throwing open a Pandora’s box of possibilities that would be investigated intensely by every jazz avant-gardist worldwide for the next 20 years. Additionally, Taylor’s supercharged playing on this date was the first glimpse on record of his ability to sustain such white heat over Coltrane-like stretches of playing time.

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Cecil Taylor - Conquistador 1966

For the second of Cecil Taylor's two Blue Note albums (following Unit Structures), the innovative pianist utilized a sextet comprised of trumpeter Bill Dixon, altoist Jimmy Lyons, both Henry Grimesand Alan Silva on basses and drummer Andrew Cyrille. During the two lengthy pieces, Lyons'passionate solos contrast with Dixon's quieter ruminations while the music in general is unremittingly intense. Both of the Taylor Blue Notes are quite historic and near-classics but, despite this important documentation, Cecil Taylor (other than a pair of Paris concerts) would not appear on records again until 1973. AMG.

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