VOTD 3/28/2024

 Cecil Taylor: Unit Structures (Blue Note/UMe)

Purchased used at The Attic

You know how you see those Joy Division Unknown Pleasures t-shirts everywhere? I had a potential student from high school show up in my class at the university one day wearing that shirt. African American. I asked him if he'd actually listened to that album. His response was, "Oh, um, I've um...been meaning to." Right.

Last year some time, I saw a movie at The Manor in Squirrel Hill, and a young man in front of me was wearing a Cecil Taylor Unit Structures t-shirt. I asked him if he actually knew that album, and his response was, "Yes, of course."

Was he more/less/as honest as the high schooler I had in my class with the Joy Division t-shirt? I'll never know. 

My band Water Shed 5tet opened for Cecil Taylor at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in 1997. We had no interaction with him, though I would later sit in with his rhythm section of Dominic Duvall and...Jay Rosen? I guess. Details are fuzzy after so long. 

Cecil Taylor. Someone I admire more than I enjoy, if I'm perfectly honest. I never had a particular taste for Cecil's music, but I acknowledge his significance. A connective tissue between Coltrane and the next generation of free players, for one thing.

What's going on here? It's difficult to tell sometimes, whether the events are improvised, composed, or some combination or degree in between. That blurring of roles and events can be exciting to me. "Unit Structures/As Of a Now/Section" has the most clearly composed sections, cells of ideas tossed around the players. The seven piece back whips up a fury at times: trumpet, alto saxophone, alto/oboe/bass clarinet, piano, two basses, drums. 

Cecil does demonstrate some frightening virtuosity at times; not just masses of notes, but very cleanly delivered (albeit unusual) lines. There's a post-Cecil aesthetic of improvising I don't particularly like, though. This attitude that everyone jumps in and plays plays plays plays plays, with little listening or crossplay happening. I don't mean to say that it's especially true here, but it seems like a real New York attitude. I once saw the David S. Ware Quartet (David having a brief association with Cecil) with Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Susie Ibarra. Most pieces went like this: David would play solo for a time. He'd give a big downbeat, and the band would start playing. It was a dense wall of sound, everybody just playing without really acknowledging anyone else. eventually it thinned out, but it seemed as though nobody was concerned with what anyone else was doing. 

To be clear, that has nothing to do with this album. Released in 1966 and presumably recorded around that time, it is Cecil still in an early period. There's notes on the back in a tiny font by Cecil himself, and I don't at the moment have the patience to plow through them. No doubt I'll be returning to this album, maybe then.