Stimmen
Steve Lacy
„Really though, there wasn’t much goin‘ on last night that Cecil Taylor wasn’t into fifteen years ago. He’s really been the secret leader of the whole New York jazz scene for fifteen years – the unacknowledged shaper of where it goes and what it does. Long before Coleman hit town. Powerful as Ornette was, Cecil was already making earthquakes and tornadoes and cyclones, but there were only a few people who listened to it, much less dare to play that adventurously. There were a very few who, like myself, were innocent enough to play that way without being self-conscious about it. […]“
„What specifically was Cecil Taylor doing that far back that is happening collectively now?“
„He was doing far more than is happening now, to my taste. He did it as an entity, and the elements are hard to discuss apart from the whole thing. He was way ahead – his music was more of everything than I find now – it was more dolorous and more frantic, and more beautiful and more ugly, and it was more alive – that’s what it was, really – more alive. That music was really supercharged. Of course what he’s playing now is wonderful too – he’s just, you know, a ‚champ.‘ That record he did with Gil Evans is something special: Into the Hot. The three pieces by Cecil, Pots, Bulbs, and Mixed, are the best examples of his writing on record, and he’s a great composer like Monk and some others.(April 12, 1965)
(aus: Garth W. Caylor Jr., Nineteen+. Conversations with Jazz Musicians, New York City 1964 1965, kein Verlag, New York, 2014, S. 122f.)
Lacy erzählt dann noch vom Konzert in der Town Hall, wohl im März 1965, und dass er mit der Fantasy-Platte („At Café Montmartre“, die zweite kannte er wohl noch nicht, ich weiss nicht, wann genau 1965 sie in den USA erschien) weniger gut klar komme, dass er Sunny Murray’s Schlagzeug nicht verstehe. Interessant wäre es natürlich, zu hören, ob er die 1966er-Alben auch nicht als wesentlichen Fortschritt nach der Impulse-Session erkennt oder schon …
Archie Shepp
„What happened to Earl Griffith since he made the record with Cecil Taylor?“
„He died. The American disease, man.“
„Is that it, is that what all these people die of?“
„America. Yeah. America, that’s what they die of. All right, so maybe it’s mistreatment by America, or maybe you call it dope or getting shot in a room with a whore, yeah. It’s all a part of the American scene. I don’t think it’s accidental, I mean I think it has to do with classes, classes of people suffering.“[…]
„And I know very few real sentimentalists who are not in love, I mean who are nostalgic and shed tears – you’re in love when you do that. That’s not the only kind of love however, because you can be in love and be like Cecil – much of Cecil’s statement is a harsh one, no – Cecil’s not a good example because he’s too complete. He’s the giant of American music and contemporary music – forget Stockhausen an Lukas Foss, forget them cats.
„Jazz is a title which has been used to keep music in a category which calls to mind a whole station of life and race of people. Cecil is the cat who – well, I think of Cecil as the exact opposite of Ornette – he knows and understands the middle class ethic, and in that sense is close to LeRoi Jones; and Ornette doesn’t understand that experience, so it is not as valuable to him. All of which is a statement of where they’re both at. Either music is valid, and I must be closer to Ornette in form, I’m probably an extension of Ornette. Cecil is the most profound musician today, I have to talk about him without reservation.“(June 25, 1965)
(aus: Garth W. Caylor Jr., Nineteen+. Conversations with Jazz Musicians, New York City 1964 1965, kein Verlag, New York, 2014, S. 122f.)
Chris White
Cecil was forced to work in places where he should’t have had to work. And it wasn’t because nobody recognised his genius, it was because Black genius isn’t recognised – period, in this country. I hate to break it down that simple, but I played a lot of gigs with Cecil where then I know Cecil didn’t belong. I knew that then and Cecil knew it, and that’s what got Cecil. And he wasn’t making any money, either. So when he stopped playing those places, he was forced to take other jobs to survive.
(aus: Val Wilmer, As Serious as Your Life. John Coltrane and Beyond, London, 1977, S. 46; White spielte zwischen 1954 und 1960 öfter mit Taylor – auf dem 1975er Blue Note-Reissue der Alben „Jazz Advance“ und „Love for Sale“ wurde er als Bassist des zweiten Albums angegeben, keine Ahnung, woher der Fehler rührte, Wilmer folgt dieser Angabe in der Fussnote)
Sunny Murray
‚Working with Cecil Taylor was the worst thing that ever happened to me,‘ declared Sunny Murray, standing outside the packed Five Spot [bei den Auftritten des Taylor Trios 1975 wohl, die Wilmer auf der Seite davor erwähnt]. Murray’s free approach to percussion blossomed in the Taylor trio of the early ’sixties when they shared the Five Spot bandstand on several occasions, but now, unable to find work with his own group, he could hardly conceal his bitterness. The coupling of his name with someone as ‚far-out‘ as Taylor was somehow, he reasoned, responsible for his own unjust neglect. ‚I became stereotyped in that role and no one wanted to hear me play. I was a good bebop drummer before Cecil. Really – I should have stayed with that.‘
(aus: Val Wilmer, As Serious as Your Life. John Coltrane and Beyond, London, 1977, S. 47)
Dennis Charles
What turned me on to Cecil at first was that he had so much energy. After playing with him for a while I was sort of in a fog. It was so much, it was too much. I never heard anything like that before, and after a while I didn’t like it no more. I wouldn’t know what to do, it was just over my head. The first couple of weeks, I thought Cecil was really crazy. After I started going to his house, we played a few places and I’d listen to what he was doing or some tunes he would write, and, and I would say to myself, „This cat’s got to be crazy.“ I mean it was so much.
(aus: Val Wilmer, As Serious as Your Life. John Coltrane and Beyond, London, 1977, S. 54)
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #151: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv – 09.04., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba