On the death of Cecil Taylor

"To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra"

Long before Cecil Taylor left his earthly body on April 5th, his music had since taken him far beyond earth's stratosphere. Music that sounds like Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk taking a hike to the edge of the known universe to give, on the edge of a black hole, a hell of a jam (waving to Stephen Hawking in the process).

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Finding satisfaction in the constant search. That's what I think when I listen to Cecil Taylor. The curiosity that prompts a search in which the discovery of something new feeds the curiosity again. "It's about the journey and not the arrival", a wise man said and I, the listener, could have suspected something like that of course. With the music of Cecil Taylor I came across that fascination that far surpasses the confusion (aversion even) that arises when you become acquainted with something strange. The fascination that makes you return to it. That fascination that allows you, eventually, to discover a world in which head and heart find a place to live for a while, a world that opens doors to other worlds. 

My curiosity for new music, hunger for worlds of sound unknown to me, once brought me from The Beatles to Beethoven and from hard rock to Wagner. From past to present and back, following the trail of music history invites you to take side steps and ignore genre boundaries. In addition to references in jazz, e.g. Ornette Coleman and Henry Threadgill, I come across composers like Scriabin and Messiaen (ha, how accessible the Catalogue d'Oiseaux sounds now) as I wander through Taylor's piano improvisations. Improvisations that surprise and satisfy and, above all, continue to fascinate immensely. A fascination that will be the reason why I have been playing them all morning after I've heard that the man - who I liked to call, in a poor attempt at nicknaming, "Stockhausen with a groove" - was no more. 

"Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself."

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- Wouter