A Tribute to Cecil Taylor on TUM

Those that follow this site regularly probably know that the Helsinki-based TUM Records has been serving as the “house label” for the inventive jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. However, the latest album, which is scheduled for release this coming Friday, is entitled 2 Blues for Cecil. The album features Andrew Cyrille, who was drummer for the Cecil Taylor Unit between 1964 and 1975. He is joined by  bassist William Parker, who played in the Unit between 1980 and 1991. The third player on the album is Enrico Rava on flugelhorn, who was part of two of Taylor’s larger ensembles, the Orchestra Of Two Continents and the Cecil Taylor European Orchestra. As usual, Amazon.com has created a Web page for pre-ordering this new album.

As might be suspected, two of the tracks are given the title “Blues for Cecil,” assigned the numbers one and two. All three of the players contributed to creating both of these tracks. I use the progressive “creating,” rather than “composing,” because these are two of four extended collective improvisations on the album. The other two are more explicitly titled “Improvisation No. 1” and “Improvisation No. 2;” and the “Blues for Cecil” tracks alternate with them.

Of the remaining tracks, two are composed by Cyrille, “Top, Bottom and What’s in the Middle” and “Enrava Melody.” The latter was clearly created with solo passages for Rava in mind, but it also involves thoughtful exchanges, first with Parker and subsequently with Cyrille himself. Two of Rava’s own compositions, “Ballerina” and “Overboard,” contribute to the album, along with Parker’s “Machu Picchu.” The album wraps up with a meditative (and slightly hesitant) account of Richard Rodgers’ “My Funny Valentine,” with Rava carrying the theme. There is a bit of irony here, since that particular show tune (taken from Babes in Arms) is associated more with Miles Davis than with Taylor.

Andrew Cyrille, Enrico Rava, and William Parker performing at Sons d’hiver in December of 2020 (photograph by Luciano Rossetti)

The album itself was recorded at Studio Ferber in Paris at the beginning of February of last year. It followed up on a New Year’s Eve concert that the trio had given at the Sons d’hiver (sounds of winter) festival in Paris during the previous December. The festival concert had been entitled Tribute to Cecil Taylor.

I was fortunate enough to listen to Taylor perform with a combo during my student days. Then, after my wife and I settled in Palo Alto, we went up to listen to him do a solo piano recital in Herbst Theatre, which began with an uninterrupted half hour of keyboard inventions. That first encounter was one of those sessions calculated to melt the wax in your ears, while the Herbst solo was far more meditative and introspective. Introspection is clearly the prevailing rhetoric on 2 Blues for Cecil, recalling the quietude that pervaded much of Taylor’s solo work towards the end of his life.

Personally, I tend to be drawn more to that solo work than to the ensembles of different sizes that Taylor would lead. That said, there is an intimacy in the trio work on 2 Blues for Cecil that recalls Taylor as a solo artist. All three of the performers on the new album clearly drew upon their personal understanding of Taylor at work; and I suspect that, in the future, I shall turn to this trio performance as much as I reflect back on Taylor’s solo piano tracks.