Customer Reviews

Jazz Advance

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the first Cecil Taylor album that I bought, back in the 70's when it was released as a Blue Note two-fer along with Love for Sale. The album opened up a new world to me. I had been your basic bebopper up until then. Taylor showed me how to mix my love of jazz with the chordal structures and harmonies of the European avant-garde that I loved as well. It was amazing...for me it outshown even the first Ornette Coleman recordings that I heard.

This is not the Cecil Taylor of the late 60's. This is Cecil's first steps into finding a new language for jazz. As such, the music should be heard in the context of the hard bop movement of the 50's. The traditional jazz elements are still to be found. The music swings, though Taylor plays with the rhythm. Steve Lacy can be heard taking his first foray into advanced music. (Before this date he was known best as a "moldy fig", playing mostly traditional jazz with the likes of Jack Teagarden.) Buell Neidlinger is marvelous. He lays down a swinging bass but is not afraid to stretch the time. The weak link in the mix is Dennis Charles. He is not a particularly inventive drummer. Nor does he swing as well as he should. His playing is the reason that the disc doesn't get five stars from me.

Taylor is the real reason to get the disc though. His playing is a marvel. He moves inside and then outside the chord changes, at times playing almost Monkish lines, and at times piling up dissonance like a jazzy Bartok. The playing is not frenetic, as his work since the 60s has been. It swings and is even quite lyrical on the ballads. But he is constantly taking risks. This music was way ahead of the curve for 1955, and in fact is still ahead of the curve. You can hear it's influence on Pianists as diverse as Paul Bley, Herbie Hancock and Mulgrew Miller, though they might not publically acknowledge it.

Jazz Advance certainly was that...an advance. Taylor continued to develop this line of work for about 10 years. Each new album developing new elements in the Taylor style. After his breakthrough Blue Note albums of the mid 60s (Unit Structures and Conquistador) he abandoned this kind of work. Many of the implications of this music have never been fully explored. I encourage every searching and open eared musician to explore this important period in the avant-garde. You might find in it the key to your own personal style.

This CD is probably the best place to start for those unfamiliar with Cecil Taylor. Not only is it fascinating to hear his unique, dischordant piano technique in the context of a traditional bebop band, but it is easier to follow the logic of his playing at this early stage. Although it is not as radical as his later stuff, this album sounds like nothing else recorded in 1956. Truly ahead of its time.

I love this album. I love what he does with Bemsha Swing and the other works on the recording, pushing the tonal and rhythmic elements to their limits. I have always had difficulty with free Jazz (still do), but I like the early works of Coleman and Taylor because they are still somewhat restrained by tradition. Give it a try.

If you like your jazz on the cutting edge, this album is for you! A superb sampling of Cecil Taylor before/during his transition into the bold exploration of new spaces for jazz and improvisation. A Marvelous musical experience.

mr taylor's piano playing on this recording from 1956 is unique and inventive, yet completely accessible to the listener. his quirky compositions and fresh cover versions are a joy. steve lacy adds some excellent soprano sax on 2 tracks and the rhythm section work (provided by buell neidlinger on bass and dennis charles on drums) carries along mr taylor's music just fine. recommended.

This is good music played by real greats, but to me feels a bit stiff when compared the music that would come later. This was my 1st cecil taylor disc and it did not really resonate until I heard his later, more unique work like "Silent Tounges" and "Unit Structures."

For those coming to this music with a real love of Ornette coleman, Steve Lacy or especially Ellington or Monk, this disc would be a good start, and all established Taylor fans should at least hear this. But in it's nature as a document of an essentially formative music, it presents the listener with a unique set of challenges which don't seem to be present on his later albums, even if they are perhaps superficially more "dissonant." This music feels hybridized in a way later work feels complete and fully concieved.

This disc shows his early roots,and it would not be my advice you start here, but rather go for "Looking Ahead" (with a same-ish group 1 year later) or "Silent Tounges" (stunning solo concert from the 70's) to get a better sense of what Taylor's mature style is really about. Then dip into the denser ensembles on Unit Sturctures or Student Studies.... and then hear this disc as to understand a musician whose work you care about, rather than using this disc as a test to ask "Do I want to care about this music?"

One of the great debut albums in jazz history. It logically extends Monk's explorations to the next level. Remarkable!

Am I wrong in regretting the loss of the great Post - Bop pianist Cecil Taylor? Would that be as stupid as regretting the loss of the great Late Romantic composer Anton Webern or the great Joycean Samuel Beckett? Well, it's the same KIND of dumb, but somehow I don't feel like it's AS dumb. At least not as long as we still live in a world where Respected Critics can speak of Brad Mehldau as a "great innovator" without choking to death from laughter. Cecil, IMHO, stranded Jazz Piano. He just left it there in the lurch. He had a mission to fulfill, and he didn't go to the end of it. He changed too quickly, and Jazz Piano has never really recovered from the loss. Ornette walked us through all the steps, from Ramblin' to Dee Dee to What Is The Name Of That Song?, and so on. We arrived, as naturally as possible, at Harmolodics and Prime Time and the violin and trumpet stuff. But Cecil's Bulbs and Pots and Mixed (on Into The Hot) showed us what Post - Ellingtonian Jazz Composition could be, and then he went left from there. Yes, there are many moments which hint at this trajectory...but he felt his mission in a whole other way. And a whole collection of masterpieces have come out of this. I still regret this, though, not so much for Cecil himself, but for the Jazz Language in general. Who has explored oblique strategies of Standards interpretation with the same intellectual penetration, skewed swing, and obsessive funkiness as Cecil does with You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To (here) and This Nearly Was Mine (elsewhere)? PLEASE don't say Paul Bley - and forget about mentioning Jarrett in this breath. They've done amazing things with standards, but we're not talking about the same thing. I mean, look, there are laughable moments on this disc, like when Dennis Charles works the Jazz/Latin rhythmic tropes on Bemsha Swing and Cecil tries out some of the stiffest Latinisms ever heard on record - the solo is Genius, but it might not be that GOOD...And Charge 'Em Blues! I mean - well - it's a pretty didactic disquisition on what Polytonal Semi - Free Blues playing could be; like some wonderful nightmare where Monk, Duke, Brubeck and Tristano are all mashed together. So sincere! So...well humorless is really too harsh a word. Because it's really touching. And it is funny, in a really endearing way. You KNOW he didn't intend for it to be funny at all. But the intense seriousness of it! So NOT Post - Modern...

I love this stuff. It's not as great as the records for Candid. But it's pretty great. And You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To is a Masterpiece.

History has a way of making the radical seem conservative, and certainly within the context of Cecil Taylor's music, his debut album, "Jazz Advance" is rather conservative. Taylor, known for his relentless, dense music, did not emerge fully formed (although even at this early date, his music is far removed from his hard bop contemporaries), but developed over time. For those of us who enjoy Taylor's music, this record is a historical curiosity, for anyone else, its either going to sound as one permutation further from the early Ornette Coleman idiom (indeed, this music is far closer to Coleman's sound than anything Taylor would be doing in the '60s or later). My understanding is that when this was first released, it raised quite a stir. Its a bit difficult to see why.

Taylor is largely melodic-- performing pieces with coherent themes-- his experimentations seem to be in the use of block chords, odd inversions, and in soloing underneath the primary voice at this point. The record is four originals and four standards, and as one would suspect, Taylor largely breathes on his own compositions. He is backed by nearly inaudible bassist Buell Neidlinger and drummer Dennis Charles, with soprano sax player Steve Lacy on two tracks. Neidlinger and Charles are far closer in the hard bop idiom-- their performances swing, Charles in particular is playing way inside hard bop. This puts them a bit at odds with Taylor, who, while he gives more space than he would on his later work, is still more of a neoclassical improvising pianist than a jazz pianist. When Lacy plays, Taylor's form of comping doesn't seem fully formed, or Lacy doesn't seem quite prepared to play inside Taylor's environment, and as a result he sounds somewhat detached from the pianist.

The sounds of the future can clearly be heard on several tracks, "Bemsha Swing" features many of Taylor's clustered chords and runs, solo piano take on "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" presents the theme in a barely recognizable fashion and is as close to his future organized chaos as he'd get, and while original "Rick Kick Shaw" is far away from where he'd end up, its the first sign of the short of aggression that Taylor would harness in the future. The music is enjoyable enough, but Taylor would reach such heights that its hard to not listen to this without comparing it to his future works. The other complaint is the sound-- this issue is from 1991 and is in desparate need of remastering.

In the end, this is an album of historical value. If you're looking for an introduction to Taylor's music and aren't ready to dive head first into his methods, try "Looking Ahead!", its a far superior album by which point Neidlinger and Charles (who reprise their roles) were far more closely integrated with Taylor's music.

(I'm re-submitting this review on 04/09) This release is a good stepping stone for listeners coming from bop, who are interested in exploring free jazz. Part of what makes this release accessible, is the presence of a traditional swing rhythm at its foundation. Taylor is able to improvise freely over the strong, swinging simplicity of Denis Charles's drumming and Buell Neidlinger's solid bass palying. Although I have re-submitted my review of this release because I felt I was originally too harsh in my defense of Mr. Charles against one reviewer's negative comments, I am no less adamant in my admiration of Mr. Charles's drumming. It's important to realize that sometimes the drummmer's most important job is to primarily keep time. Charles does exactly that, and he does it with style and musicality . Like all the great jazz drummers, Charles has a highly identifiable and personal sound. Having said that, I would also recommend Taylor's Looking Ahead! as a companion to this release. They are both good representations of an important transitional period in jazz history.