Peter Valente Edits New Anthology Exploring Cecil Taylor's Music and Poetry
A collected volume of around forty contributions, edited by Peter Valente, traces the life and work of Cecil Taylor, the free jazz composer, pianist and poet.
A new anthology is devoted to the work of Cecil Taylor, one of the most idiosyncratic composers and pianists of free jazz. Edited by writer, translator and filmmaker Peter Valente, the book brings together around forty contributions that draw a multilayered and demanding portrait of the musician, who also worked as a poet and dancer. The volume presents itself as an overview of a life and career that deliberately resisted simple classification.
The book opens with assessments from music criticism. In his essay "The Avant-Gardist Who Came in From the Cold," Gary Giddins describes Taylor as heir to a tradition of "endless discovery." Drummer Marc Edwards recounts his "transformative" experience playing alongside Taylor. John Bruschini characterizes Taylor's music as consistently "controversial, groundbreaking and revolutionary." Valente himself contributes an essay on the many drummers with whom Taylor worked over the course of his career, showing how much the changing line-ups shaped the development of his music.
A special focus is placed on Taylor's poetry. In "Cecil Taylor and the Commitment to Poetry," David Grundy argues that poetry was the place where Taylor theoretically developed his artistic concept. Grundy also points out that Taylor used his writing to address both his homosexuality and his Black identity artistically. Asked whether he was gay, Taylor reportedly answered that he did not accept whether a word with three letters defined the complexity of his humanity, and that he avoided the trap of simple labeling. During his lifetime Taylor published no book of his own. His texts appeared mainly as brief accompanying notes on record sleeves, and he frequently performed together with the poet Amiri Baraka. Grundy sees Taylor's poetry as part of a comprehensive way of life that was at once devoted and far-reaching.
The volume also contains a bibliography and discography of Taylor's writings, which fans are likely to particularly value. Will Alexander gathers poems by other authors who engage with Taylor and his way of working, including a text by Anne Waldman. Mark Miller contributes two essays that make it easier to access Taylor's world and thinking. Especially revealing is his piece on Taylor's unusual alphabet notation and on dance, as well as Matthew Goodheart's text on the foundations of Taylor's music. Alex Ward examines the relationship between the notated and the improvised material in his compositions, a question that arises immediately with a musician who drew so strongly on improvisation.
The book concludes with interviews conducted by Ted Panken with Taylor and other musicians. They offer insight into the thinking of this, as the volume puts it, "master pianist and meta-musician-poet-dancer." By combining essays, poetry, interviews and bibliographic documentation, the book presents its selection as a whole in which Taylor's work is reflected in its various forms of expression. It is precisely this diversity that makes the book an entry point both for connoisseurs of his work and for readers who have so far only approached the musician at the margins.
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