Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Orchestral Cecil, July 19, 2004
Just when I think I've got a hold of Cecil Taylor and I can predict where he's going next he develops a whole new direction that opens up new vistas. Taylor's work through the late 80s and 90s often began to sound distressingly familiar. Part of the problem was that much of the recorded material was done during one year and released by FMP slowly through the 90s, giving too much weight to a particular period of the pianist's development. Also, loosing Jimmy Lyons in 1987 was a particularly difficult blow to Taylor, one that forever would change his music. But Cecil is nothing if not resourceful and a genius. This disc represents a new high in his output, and a rare recorded example of his large group work.Recorded in Italy in 2000, Owner of the Riverbank is one of Cecil Taylor's most ambitious scores. It was concieved for the Italian Instabile Orchestra, an ensemble of 18 improvising wind, string and brass instruments. Percussion includes not only standard trap set, but orchestral percussion including timpani. The liner notes describe the rehearsal process for the concert and represent probably the best description of Taylor's working processes that I've ever read. Taylor doesn't work from a traditional score, nor does he work from a traditional composer's ideas of authority and control. A score by Taylor is a blueprint over which members of the ensemble add their own personality and ideas. Yet, each moment of this work is dominated by Cecil's presence and signature ideas. From this vague and unstructured beginning the final product ends up sounding intricately structured, with suggestions of chord changes, predetermined scales, and even a number of almost Ellingtonian melodies welling up out of the general chaos. Owner of the Riverbank also features a more extended use of orchestral color than is evident from many Taylor CDs. The opening of the work is extraordinary, featuring a delicate, chamber ensemble of strings, percussion and piano. Though Taylor is known for his thunderous percussive technique on his instrument, his playing also features moments of extreme delicacy and lyrical effusion. The piece builds from this extended opening, breaking into thunderous waves of sound and then gelling into broad melancholy melodies, particularly effective in the unison trumpet line about a third of the way through the piece. Large group Cecil can be bewildering for a first time listener. Even for those of us who are seasoned Taylor afficienados the large group work on disc can be forbidding. Having recently seen one of Taylor's big band concerts at the Irridium, I realized that the visual element in this music is extremely important. When attending a live concert of this music you can choose what lines to follow by focusing your eyes on certain players and letting the rest of the sound wash over your ears....or you can open your focus to the caterwaul. Either way, a Taylor performance is interactive and the visual is an important tool
to make this journey. Fortunately, this CD includes a short video segment that helps achieve at least a little of this effect. From what is evident in the video, the live performance must have been a truly spectacular experience. All in all, this is one of the best Cecil Taylor releases of the past ten years, and along with Taylor's duo with Mat Manieri, recently released on Bridge records, is the harbinger of a major new period in the composer's development. (This is also confirmed by several recent live performances Cecil has given around New York and environs.) This should not be your first Cecil album. The work from 60s on Blue Note is much better as an introduction to the Taylor style. But this is a wonderful disc for CT fans, and a source of endless fascination. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on this disc. It's worth it.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Transcendent, July 28, 2004
I didn't know what to expect when I bought this album. The most
recent Cecil Taylor CD I owned was recorded in 1990. I was also
suspicious because Cecil was playing with an orchestra. I feared
that this meant that Cecil's creativity would be hampered by a
large group of non-improvising players. I also feared that a
seventy year old Cecil would be unable to play with the same
power and fluency that he commanded when he was younger. I was
wrong on all counts.
The Owner of the River Band is equal in greatness to any music,
jazz or classical, that I have ever heard. It is jazz in that
all the players improvise. Due, however, to Cecil's demanding
standards and overall shaping of the material, this music is
ordered as rigorously as anything composed by Iannis Xenakis or
Eliot Carter. While Cecil's power and ferocity is as much in
evidence as it has ever been, it is balanced by quiet sections
of weird beauty. I say weird beauty because it sounds unlike
anything I have ever heard. Every time I play this album, I
encounter things that I didn't notice on previous hearings.
Instead of Cecil's technique decreasing because of age, it has
if anything increased. Cecil has always been known for playing
loud and fast. In this album, he plays soft and fast which is far more difficult. He also plays with a tonal beauty that I have never heard before; and during one part of the piece, he reaches into the piano and plucks its strings. It is true that he isn't as prominent as he is in other recordings. Here he is first among equals. He didn't intend to showcase himself in this
recording. As I mentioned earlier, this is an orchestral
composition; it is not a piano concerto. It is an album that I
will return to again and again. I would urge anyone who cares
about modern music, be it jazz or classical, to invest in this
album. There is nothing better to be found in either genre.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A few caveats (or how I learned to listen to this CD)., July 24, 2004
First, if you haven't read weirdears review below already, please do so now. I have been trying to write a review of this piece for several weeks and never found the right approach. wierdears has relieved me of that burden and I thank him. He has a much getter depth of knowledge of Cecil Taylor's work (I am familiar with only about 8-10 CDs of Taylor's and have never had the good fortune to see him live) than I do and he puts it to good use.
Having said that, I do want to add a few caveats. I came to this piece not only a fan of Cecil's but of the Italian Instabile Orchestra. I love their own work and their own musical ethos. If you want to get to know that group better and/or to hear them at their best, this is not the CD to go to. They are arguably the best collective of composers and soloists working in creative improv orchestra music today. They play beautifully on this CD but they never really solo and their own musical personalities are submerged completely in Taylor's. I want to commend them on that- this is something that the Italians seem so willing to do (obvious to anyone who knows Tiziano Tononi's great homage projects to Don Cherry and Rahsaan Roland Kirk). The members of the IIO, all of whom are leaders of their own projects, some of whom have appeared on hundreds of CDs, admire Taylor enormously and give themselves over to this project. weirdears is right- the liner notes by Marcello Lorrai are very helpful but weirdears leaves out one aspect of Taylor's method- for the most part he left the players to figure out what he wanted musically while putting the piece together. The impression one gets from the notes is that the IIO players found this to be frustrating, exhilirating, insane and perfect- it forced them out of their own methodologies both as individuals and a group. The concert on this CD took place in Ruva, Italy on Sept. 10th, 2000. The liner notes point out that a year and a half later at the Banlieues Blues Festival in Paris, Taylor and the IIO performed together again with a new score based on Taylor's trust and knowledge of what the IIO players had to offer him. That later piece is one I would love to hear as well.
My second caveat is about Taylor's playing. weirdears feels that Taylor is entering a new phase of his oeuvre. Probably so. But don't come to this record expecting Taylor's usual tsunami of piano sound. The piano is there but even as its most tumultuous, it is softer, more calm than is his norm. I am afraid that I assumed that some of that was Taylor getting older and maybe less able to play that enormously physical style that he created. Maybe it's both- Taylor is getting older and he is adapting his music. Or maybe the music is adapting him, as weirdears suggests. Make no mistake- I love what Taylor has wrought on this piece- it is just not what I expected. And maybe that's all my caveats amount to- that this CD is not what I hoped for- the IIO unleashed with Taylor at full throttle cavorting around the Italians. In any case, the members of the IIO, seemed to have loved the experience. Pino Minafra , one of the co-founders and leaders of the IIO (although as far as I can tell at least ten of the members can claim to be co-founders and leaders), wrote this of the meeting:
'The conjunction of "the great spirit of CECIL TAYLOR and the freest soul of the ITALIAN INSTABILE ORCHESTRA united in a unique CRY of LOVE, JOY and FREEDOM" generated the highest levels of musical expression ever reached by the Ochestra.' (I have changed the punctuation somewhat-GT).
My last caveat is that of the ending-it is hard to tell but it almost sounds as if the piece were cut off on the CD. The music just disappears. The CD is enhanced with a short video clip and a .pdf file of the Italian liner notes in the Italian. It would be sad if the music were shortened to include these bonuses. Hopefully, I am wrong about this.
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