|
He
was
already
playing
the
huge
Bosendorfer
grand
piano
as
the
audience
filed
in
and
sat
down,
a
fierce
little
gent
in
dreads
and
shades,
the
great
Cecil
Taylor,
bringing
50
years
of
avant-garde
savvy
in
his
brain
and
his
fingers.
And
out
it
came
that
October
night
in
1997,
much
more
than
you
would
think
he
could
express
in
an
hour
and
a
half.
But
he
kept
the
notes
coming
by
the
millions,
never
resting,
so
little
time,
so
much
to
deny.
It
was
a
demonstration
of
where
the
rest
of
music
has
never
been
and
probably
will
never
go.
Taylor
covered
that
territory
like
a
Thomas
Guide.
You
couldn't
help
but
think
his
listeners
were
there
to
steal,
though,
because
from
instant
to
instant,
he
sounded
for
all
the
world
like
a
genius.
What
emerged
was
couched
in
plain,
hard-core
forbidding
dissonance,
yet
the
form
was
strictly
dialectical.
One
hand
contradicted
the
other
within
the
smears,
smudges,
stacks,
piles,
heaps,
mounds
and
strings
of
sound.
Within
each
such
parcel,
the
ceaseless
fingers
built
intricacies
of
motion
that
throbbed
and
writhed.
These
packets
would
accumulate,
add
up,
pose
a
question.
Then
another
accumulation
would
answer,
generally
in
the
negative.
Two
Sancho
Panzas
--
Dominik
Duvall
on
bass
and
Jackson
Krall
on
drums
--
accompanied
Taylor
on
his
escapades.
Three-quarters
of
an
hour
passed
under
this
deluge
of
vinegar.
A
moment
of
complete
astonishment
then
took
place:
Taylor
reached
into
the
piano
for
a
sheet
of
music!
Had
he
been
reading
all
this
from
a
score?
No,
of
course
not.
The
score
would
have
reached
the
ceiling.
This
was
just
a
sheet
of
paper
that
had
words
on
it,
which
Taylor
used
in
a
spoken
passage
of
magisterial
incomprehensibility.
But
St.
Cecilia
must
have
slipped
him
a
wink,
for
now
he
began
to
play
a
few
passages
that
suggested
ordinary
music.
A
few
bars
escaped
that
sounded
like
"A
Pretty
Girl
Is
Like
a
Melody."
But
his
better
self
quickly
asserted
itself
in
fiery,
final
refutation.
A
couple
of
years
later,
perhaps
because
he
was
seated
at
the
same
huge
grand
piano
not
far
from
where
his
old
avant
garde
bandmate
Steve
Lacy
had
been
playing
soprano
saxophone
a
few
weeks
earlier,
Taylor
seemed
to
feel
he
could
speak
freely.
He
always
has,
of
course,
ever
since
those
days
50
years
ago
with
Lacy
and
the
bassist
Buell
Neidlinger,
when
Taylor
was
freshly
graduated
from
the
New
England
Conservatory
of
Music.
Tonight,
the
Taylor
fingers
were
quarreling
vociferously
and
more
or
less
amiably,
as
usual,
one
bunch
going
up
the
keys,
the
other
going
down,
both
hands
playing
at
once.
Their
owner
would
admonish
them
from
time
to
time
with
a
veiled
reference
to
reality,
and
then
they
would
start
banging,
as
if
to
emphasize
that
no
one
was
going
to
tell
them
what
to
do.
For
these
hands
believe
in
freedom,
just
as
their
operator
does.
They
always
have
and
they
always
will.
Hence,
as
Taylor
made
his
way
through
a
piece
that
seemed
to
be
a
wide-ranging
discourse
on
"What
Is
This
Thing
Called
Love,"
a
dialectic
emerged,
in
keeping
with
Taylor's
experiences
as
a
university
music
professor.
A
bar
or
two
would
advance
a
premise,
and
the
following
measures
would
answer
it
with
devastating
commentary.
Emotions
would
rise,
the
ideological
adversaries
would
become
heated,
and
fury
would
begin
to
reign,
despite
brief
placatory
interruptions
of
a
lyrical
nature.
To
use
the
word
discordant
about
this
utterance
would
be
to
beg
the
question,
for
the
ear
was
being
given
a
great
deal
more
than
that
to
deal
with.
Abundant
allusions
to
the
world
of
Western
music
could
be
gathered,
mainly
to
the
classical
sector
but
often
to
the
jazz
arena.
The
ear
was
being
pretty
well
conquered
or
at
least
cowed.
And
no
matter
how
the
argument
went,
both
sides
of
it
remained
transfixed
by
that
old
devil
form.
But
the
form
the
music
mainly
took
was
a
lightning-like
advance
along
a
path
that
resembled
nothing
so
much
as
the
network
of
nerve
ganglia
in
the
various
appendages
of
the
human
body.
At
a
certain
point,
his
nerves
perhaps
drained,
Taylor
rose
from
the
keyboard
and
began
to
recite
fragments
of
completely
indecipherable
word
successions:
"Amber
bee
cook
inaccessible
principle
of
the
mode
...
reeds
and
grasses
isolated."
Unlike
the
music,
this
was
pretty
much
nonsense.
It
was
from
the
piano
that
the
poetry
emerged,
and
it
spoke
dramatically,
as
Cecil
Taylor
always
does,
of
some
deep,
mysterious
and
permanent
understanding
of
that
thing
we
call
music.
But
don't
try
this
at
home.
|
