(thanks to Wikipedia.com)
Cecil Taylor began playing piano at age six and studied at the New York College of Music and New England Conservator. After first steps in R&B and swing-styled small groups in the early 1950s, he formed his own band with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in 1956 and with whom he made his first recording that same year. Some critics said it already pointed to the freedoms in which he later became immersed.
Through the 50s and 60s, Cecil's music grew more complex and moved away from existing jazz styles. Gigs were often hard to come by, and club owners thought his lengthy pieces were not easily accessible to the general jazz-going audience. Landmark recordings, like UNIT STRUCTURES followed later, in 1966. Alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons later joined Cecil and became one of his most important and consistent collaborators. Taylor, Lyons and drummer Sunny Murray (and later Andrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of The Unit, Taylor's primary group effort until Lyons's premature death in 1986. With 'the Unit', musicians developed often volcanic new forms of conversational interplay.
Cecil began to perform solo concerts in the early 1970s. Many of these were released on album and include INDENT (1973), side one of Spring of Two Blue-J's (1973), SILENT TONGUES (1974), GARDEN (1982), and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973 and then a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.
Cecil recorded sparingly in the 2000s, but continued to perform with his own ensembles (the Cecil Taylor Ensemble and the Cecil Taylor Big Band) as well as with other musicians such as Joe Locke, Max Roach and Amiri Baraka. In 2004, the Cecil Taylor Big Band at the Iridium 2005 was nominated a best performance of 2004 by All About Jazz, and the same in 2009 for the Cecil Taylor Trio at the Highline Ballroom in 2009. The trio consisted of Taylor, Albey Balgochian, and Jackson Krall. An autobiography, more concerts, and other projects are in the works. In 2010, Triple Point Records released a deluxe limited edition double LP titled Ailanthus/Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions of Two Root Songs, a set of duos with long-time collaborator Tony Oxley that was recorded live at the Village Vanguard in New York City.
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