Customer Reviews

Unit Structures

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It's hard to understand why anyone would be proud not to understand something and the listener from Seattle's remark that this music has no form proves he doesn't. What established Unit Structures as a classic is that Taylor paved the way for composition within the sphere of so-called free jazz. Most of this music is tightly ordered (Taylor gets remarkable sonorities from the two reeds especially) and the solos elaborate on the "unit structures." Maybe the trick for a new listener is not to listen too hard, but rather let the music wash over you until you can hear it with some familiarity. I've been listening to Taylor for more about 15 years and for me this album remains one of his most refreshing, enigmatic, and joyful works. Unfortunately, Taylor's liner notes aren't too helpful; for a better understanding of his music, check out Gary Giddins's Visions of Jazz and Ekkehard Jost's Free Jazz.

This album, along with Taylor's other Blue Note Album Conquistador, mark the first moves by Taylor into his fully mature group style. Most of his work since these two ground-breaking recordings, has mined the veins he discovered in this period. Of the two albums, Unit Structures is the more tightly organized, all appearences to the contrary.

Unit Structures really has to be understood as a series of compositions. Unlike much of the New York avant-garde music of the 60's, this really isn't "free" jazz. Taylor's music is always highly controlled...just listen to how his piano "directs" the soloists and the rhythm section. His is not a cacophonous art, despite it's surface. Many of the works are based on predetermined modal scales, improvisations based on precomposed motives and themes, and obssessive development of tiny rhythmic cells. In many ways, Taylor shows influences of the European avant-garde (or influence on the European avant-garde) and yet the music always has a sense of it's jazz, blues and African roots. As such, I think Taylor may have been the most influential jazz composer of the 60's...paving the way for the experiements of Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill and other structuralists of the late 20th century avant-garde in jazz.

I think many others have hit on the way to listen to this music. Don't try to figure it out right away. Let the waves of sound wash over you first. As you listen more and more, the sense and structure of this music becomes more clear. This is music that can engage the head, but engages the heart first. It is almost shamanic music.

Before going into the review I would like to say that the people who claim that this is just noise does not know what they are talking about. I have listened to free- (which this record really isn't) and avantgarde jazz extensively for the last ten years and there are undoubtedly some records that can be described as noise but this isn't one of them. Just because the music puts more emphasis on textures and improvisation than on conventional melodies and "swing" doesn't make it noise. You guys have a lot to learn!!!

About the music, this features one of the best groups Taylor ever led. Drummer Andrew Cyrille, bassists Henry Grimes and Alan Silva
and altoist Jimmy Lyons were "regular" (if that can be said about guys who rarely had the chance to perform in public)band members of taylors various groups over the years. Added to this nucleus was multi-reedist McIntyre and trumpeter Eddie Gale Stevens. Especially the former is crucial to the overall sound of the album. The basses were used in a very cool way:Grimes kept the pulse going, functioning as a "traditonal" bass while Silva was "freer" and played with a bow, often in a very high register, commenting on the soloists various movements.

The first song "Steps" features McIntyre on alto (Stevens does not play on this song). It starts with a very complicated stop-start theme before an almost boogie-woogieish piano line introduces a screaming, intense McIntyre solo. The energy level is VERY high with Taylor variously playing/changing patterns and improvising along with the soloists. The greatest part of the song is Taylors solo which starts as a piano-drums duet before kicking into overdrive with the basses joining in. Awesome!!!

The next song "Enter, Evening" is a ballad of sorts with MCIntyre playing oboe. This could have drifted into impressionistic muzak but Taylors edgy playing keeps everyone on their toes. I have always heard this song as a dialogue between Silva and the soloists. His playing really comes through on this number. I really like the trumpet solo on this one...

The title track is VERY complicated with at least 20 different, short motives being played in various instrument combinations before McIntyres bass clarinet solo begins and the madness starts!!! I don't like the trumpet solo on this one but otherwise it's perfect and as far away from meaningless noise as it gets.

The last song is a Taylor solo piece (with drums and bass) that is brilliantly constructed. Because of the many instruments, Taylors solos on the other songs are quite short and this album seems to focus more on group interactions than individual solos so this song gives Taylor an opportunity to stretch out.

This album is really Cecils big break from the jazz traditon. It was his first proper recording in three and a half years and he had tons of great ideas that he just wanted to get out of his system. Cecil Taylor recorded another album, "Conquistador" a bit later which is even better. That album has only two songs and only one saxophone which means that there are more opportunities for the players (especially Cecil) to stretch out. I's also MUCH more accessible than"Unit Structures" with less rapsodic and more melodic themes. Unfortunately, it's out of print. Blue Note should really reissue that album-it would probably cost them much less than a Norah "BORING" Jones marketing campaign...

Cecil Taylor's "Unit Structures" is an avant-garde classic that documents his creativity in 1966, showing him continuing to push the boundaries of creative music. The sonic intensity and tendency toward collective group improvisation is in full force here. To some extent, this is in contrast to the recordings he did for Candid just a few years earlier, which, although radical, were still largely based around "tunes." The musicians in Taylor's group are legendary in their own right: Jimmy Lyons is on alto; Alan Silva is on bass; and Andrew Cyrille is on drums, to name just a few of the masters who take Taylor's unit structures to incredible heights.

I have only given the recording four stars because this session is definitely in dire need of remastering. For such classic and incredibly executed music, it is unfortunate that the sound of this Blue Note CD is fairly muddy and lacking in color. It is almost maddening to hear Taylor's piano sound as though it is underwater. The drums sound dull and Silva's incredible bass playing lacks clarity on this CD. Try to find an original LP copy of this session, because it will sound much better than this CD, which is a poor representation of the session.

- You're not supposed to listen to this at dinner and feel sophisticated.

- Free/semi-free jazz took cues from serialism and atonal music without abandoning its blues ancestry.

- Listen "sectionally", rather than trying to tie every loose end together holistically in one go. It's called Unit Structures, not Unit Structure.

- At the same time, consider the emotional relation of motifs, tone clusters, chromatic flavors and all that mumbo jumbo.

- Pay attention to how the drums and bass interact.

- The piano is an instrument with overlooked percussion properties.

- This isn't Kind of Blue. Don't buy it for the sake of having a jazz album if you don't really care.

- The reason your friends think it's just noise is they're dumb.

Cecil Taylor forced people to question their beliefs about not only what is jazz music, but what is music at all, and his music is still making people run these thoughts through their minds today. A true avant-gardist, but with an obvious love for the style of Monk and other jazz greats. Taylor must be admired for his uncompromising innovation, and his pure talent on his instrument simply cannot be denied. Unit Structures is one of his brightest shining records and I reccommend it to anyone looking for something to seriously push their limits.

"Unit Stuctures" was the culmination of the development of Cecil Taylor's unique vision. All the brilliant music he has made since then, since 1966, has been the unfolding of that vision. Taylor's solo work is amazing, but I find his ensemble work to be even more impressive because the architecture is more complex. This recording's ensemble includes Jimmy Lyons on alto, who would play with Cecil until his untimely death in 1986, and Andrew Cyrille on drums. That trio was arguably responsible for some of Taylor's best music, including on the "Akisakila" live recording. Here they are joined by 2 bassists and two more horns. "Unit Structures" is not as wild or intense as some of Taylor's later work, but to say it is challenging is an understatement, and I for one never tire of hearing it -- like the greatest art of all genres it always has more to reveal. Never mind the incomprehension of the multitude, aided and abetted by the Ken Burns series, you cannot claim to be familiar with modern jazz if you haven't heard this music! Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and the late Coltrane are the indisputable foundations for all post-bop innovation in jazz -- avoid them like an ostrich if you think innovation is bad. I believe that Cecil Taylor the artist and "Unit Structures" the recording will be seen in the future as some of the finest accomplishments of 20th Century Art.

This is the companion to Cecil Taylor's Conquistador. Unit Structures works in the same format, but without the great Eddie Gale on trumpet.

No need to explain Taylor's music for those who find horror in listening. Taylor is making big demands of listeners, and you are either interested, or not. Either is fine.

But if you are, Unit Structures is purley about spontainious interaction, shifting textures and rhytms. Taylor here is working with a bigger ensamble here than usual, and this provides more possilities to give infinate nuances to his waves of sound.

Fantastic if this is a musical choice you are curious about and ready for.

There should be no misunderstanding - Cecil Taylor meant it when he called this album "Unit Structures". That these structures are experimental in nature does not make them less "structured". By respecting his audience, Taylor is not content with repeating old structures (12, 16, 32 bars). He experiments with different elements of structure - the structure of instrumentation, of the melodic development, of the dynamics. You will notice how on each piece the instrumental structure changes - piano and drums, a bass joins, the drums drop out and a second bass joins, etc. The two takes of "enter evening" prove that the musicians were provided with a basic melodic line which is the starting point and the point of departure for their collective experiments.
We should be thankful for artists such as Taylor who respect us enough to attempt to find something new for us, who believe that we deserve a broadening of the musical spectrum.
For the edventureous experiments, for the many beautiful moments, and for the communicative energies - this is a definite 5 star album worth having and listening to.

Although nothing here is as shocking as Albert Ayler's forays into structure/less jazz improvisation--nor as revolutionary as Ornette Coleman's hard-charging free-bop assault; Cecil Taylor introduces a comparatively difficult to manipulate instrument to free jazz; the piano. His fingers sound like they are that of a millipede on some of these tracks because I honestly cannot distinguish notes at times. Instead everything is clustered in spasmic leaps. The great part about this seeming indulgence, however, is that there is a well-studied classicism here. Strings pop up and fade away. Best of all, in true Blue Note fashion, it is a live recording with all of the great explosive energy of 60's freak out jazz. I would recommend this for progressive enthusiasts of any music who are looking for a change from brass-based free jazz, with a touch of classical, or even avant rock tendencies. That is not to say this CD is cosmic. Quite the opposite actually--this is rooted in the hard sounds of jazz and amidst all of its beauty, it is also menacing at times. Solid for sure. I would recommend Ornette Coleman's live at the Golden Circle or any of the Ayler 'Spirit' series if unrestrained energy is what you are looking for. If you prefer the mathematician approach of Thelonious Monk and wonder what he would have attempted if pumped full of endorphins and 60's counterculture; start with Unit Structures.