Taylor, Cecil,
1929-2018, African-American jazz pianist, composer, and poet, b. Queens,
N.Y. A child prodigy on the piano, Taylor studied at the N.Y. College of
Music and New England Conservatory in Boston. In 1955, he formed his first
quartet in New York, releasing his first album a year later. Through the
mid-‘60s, Taylor’s music moved beyond the confines of jazz to
incorporate modern composition techniques including tone clusters and
complex polyrhythms, becoming a leader in what was called the free jazz
movement along with Ornette Coleman. Among his notable album releases were
Stereo Drive (1958) with saxophonist John Coltrane ), Looking
Ahead (1959), and Unit Structures (1966). In
the later ‘60s-‘70s, he performed a series of solo concerts
and began to gain greater recognition for his compositions and performances
including earning a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973 and being invited to play
at the White House by Jimmy Carter in 1978 as part of a jazz
festival held on its lawn. From the ‘80s, Taylor led a variety of
small and larger ensembles, continuing to explore more abstract structures.
He regularly toured Europe where his music was more widely appreciated than
in his home country. Taylor was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius
Grant" in 1991. He also performed his own poetry in concert.
See A.B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Business (1985,
2004), H. Mandel, Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz
(2007), V. Wilmer and R. Williams, As Serious As Your Life: Black
Music and the Free Jazz Revolution, 1957–1977 (2018).
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