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Friday, 24 May 2013

Honoring Cecil Taylor: New York Celebration, May 8-19

Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor

Monday, 07 May 2012

Cecil Taylor©Hans Speekenbrink

“You honor Cecil Taylor by being yourself.” – Ben Ratliff, New York Times

ISSUE Project Room and Harlem Stage, in partnership with Anthology Film Archives and the Jazz Studies Department of Columbia University, will present a month-long celebration of the great maestro Cecil Taylor, featuring a range of performances, readings, conversations and screenings, as well as two extremely rare performances by Cecil Taylor himself. The celebration begins May 8-9 with performances by Taylor-influenced pianists Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer and Amina Claudine Myers, with special guest Amiri Baraka, at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse in Manhattan. Other concerts this month include Thollem McDonas and Arrington de Dionyso and the William Hooker Ensemble at ISSUE Project Room on May 16; a special film screening of Taylor footage at Anthology Film Archives on May 22nd; and two “intimate evenings” with Taylor at Harlem Stage Gatehouse on May 17, and at ISSUE Project Room on May 19.

An Intimate Evening With Cecil Taylor (Harlem Stage Gatehouse, May 17 & ISSUE Project Room, May 19)

Vijay Iyer©Andrea Canter

The name Cecil Taylor is synonymous with “improvisation,” “free jazz,” and “avant garde.” Now 83, Taylor has been at the forefront of modern music for six decades and still performs his unique style of highly inventive, highly percussive piano. The New York City native formed his first musical alliance with Steve Lacy in the 1950s and increasingly pushed the boundaries of jazz as he evolved a complex and polytonal approach. He co-founded the Jazz Composers Guild in 1964 to support the work of avant garde musicians. Taylor’s primary ensemble for 25 years, the Unit included Jimmy Lyons and Sonny Murray (later Andrew Cyrille). Their landmark recording, Unit Structures, was released in 1966. After Lyons’ death, Taylor formed other bands, including the Feel Trio with Tony Oxley and William Parker, and in other combinations with Oxley, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Max Roach, Amiri Baraka and more. He began performing more often solo in the 70s and performed for Jimmy Carter at the White House. More recently, Taylor has worked in both small and large ensembles and has collaborated with dancers and composed for ballet; he is an accomplished poet and sometimes incorporates his poetry into his music. One of the most uncompromising and challenging musicians of all time, Taylor has received the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. Taylor will perform two “intimate evenings” of solo piano, at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse (May 17) and ISSUE Project Room (May 19).

Celebrating Cecil: Vijay Iyer, Amina Claudine Myers, Craig Taborn, Amiri Baraka at Harlem Stage Gatehouse (May 8-9)

The May 8-9 concerts feature artists significantly influenced by Taylor:

Described by Amiri Baraka as “an oncoming phenomenon, already up to his fingers in the most advanced music of our wildly contradictory age,” Vijay Iyer brings to his unique jazz modernism a background eclectic in both its cultural and musical influences. Listen to Iyer and you can hear the rhythms and harmonies of his Indian heritage as well as the formality of European classical tradition and the freedom of American rock. The son of Indian immigrants started on violin as a toddler but was more interested in his sister’s piano. Entirely self-taught as a pianist and composer, Vijay discovered jazz in his teens. Continuing musical pursuits through college, he earned a Master’s Degree in physics at 22 and a doctorate in music and cognitive science from UC-Berkeley in 1998. Since moving to New York and concentrating on his music career, Iyer has appeared with Steve Coleman's Five Elements, Roscoe Mitchell's avant garde Note Factory, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar, poet Mike Ladd’s Fieldwork, and poet-activist Amiri Baraka's Blue Ark. Recent projects include his duo “Raw Materials” with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, the two-piano duo series with Craig Taborn, his touring trio (with Stephen Crump and Marcus Gilmore), his South Asian trio “Tirtha,” and a series of acclaimed solo and ensemble recordings, including Historicity (2009) and Solo (2010). His new trio recording, Accelerando, was released in April. Recently Iyer was named a Doris Duke Artist, recipient of the Greenfield Prize, and director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music (Banff Centre, Alberta Canada). Of the influence of Cecil Taylor, Iyer recently told the New York Times, “He’s always generating energy from the piano. If you look at some of my music, like the arpeggiative motifs that generate momentum within the ensemble, that’s coming straight out of him, actually.”

Amina Claudine Myers

A first-wave AACM member, Amina Claudine Myers is well known for her works involving vocal and instrumental ensembles, drawing on her background in classical music and the church music of the South. As a youngster growing up in rural Arkansas, she assisted her church choirs as vocalist, pianist and organist, later assuming duties as choir director. She went on to earn a degree in music education at Philander College in Little Rock. Relocating to Chicago in the 1960s, she taught in the public schools and attended Roosevelt University, joining the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1966. Myers began composing for voice, organizing her first choir in 1975. Relocating to New York in 1976, she released a recording of solo piano interpretations of Marion Brown's music, Poems For Piano, followed by a a duet with percussionist Pheeroan Aklaff, Song for Mother Earth, and trio recordings, Salutes Bessie Smith and Circle of Time. In the mid 80s she explored funk/jazz fusion with Country Girl. Over her career, she has worked with a long list of creative musicians, including Archie Shepp, Charlie Haden´s Liberation Orchestra, James Blood Ulmer, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, Frank Lowe, Lester Bowie, and Bill Laswell. Her most recent recording, Augmented Variations, was released in 2009.

Pianist/Fender Rhodes master Craig Taborn grew up in Golden Valley, MN, where he frequently jammed with future Bad Plus icons Reid Anderson and David King. He first attracted attention as a student at the University of Michigan, and soon was holding the piano chair for Detroit sax sensation James Carter. His compositions and chops pushed beyond mainstream and he became a regular collaborator with such innovative musicians as Roscoe Mitchell, Susie Ibarra, Dave Douglas, Chris Potter, Steve Coleman, David Binney, Tim Berne, Gerald Cleaver, Michael Formanek and more. He has released four recordings, his self-titled debut (DIW), Light Made Lighter (Thirsty Ear), the highly acclaimed Junk Magic (Thirsty Ear), and his 2011 poll-topping solo set, Avenging Angel (ECM). Recent exploits include duets with Vijay Iyer and a Village Vanguard run with his current trio (with Thomas Morgan and Gerald Cleaver). Noted the Boston Phoenix, “Taborn doesn’t simply transfer acoustic piano ideas to the Rhodes — he thinks orchestrally, in terms of timbres, and makes effective use of the instrument’s special sound, especially its ‘sub-bass’ effects.” Adds Tim Berne, “It doesn’t really matter what he plays. I think he’s one of the most incredible musicians alive." Taborn recently was named to receive the Paul Ackett Award at the 2012 North Sea Jazz Festival. Describing the influence of Cecil Taylor on his own music in a recent New York Times interview, Taborn noted the quality of “elasticity” -- “By elasticity, I don’t just mean in terms of time, but also dynamics. He was hyperextending that world, doing these really rapid loud-soft dynamics, even within one phrase. His music always dances, that’s the thing.”

Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka (born Leroi Jones) is known as the founder of the Black Arts Movement in 1960s Harlem, influenced by artists and political figures ranging from Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Sun Ra to the Cuban Revolution, Malcolm X, and world revolutionary movements. The author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism and revolutionary political activist, Baraka has recited poetry, lectured, and taught on cultural and political issues throughout in the U.S., Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. His published and performance works include the signature study on African-American music, Blues People (1963), the play Dutchman (1963), Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979), and The Essence of Reparations (2003). With his wife Amina, he also published The Music (1987), a collection of poems and monographs on Jazz and Blues. Amiri and Amina Baraka lead the word-music ensemble, Blue Ark: The Word Ship and co-direct Kimako’s Blues People, the “artspace” housed in their theater basement. Amiri’s honors include an Obie and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. He’s Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the Poet Laureate of New Jersey.

Celebrating Cecil: Thollem McDonas/Arrington de Dionyso and William Hooker at ISSUE Project Room (May 16)

In a concert dedicated to Cecil Taylor’s enduring influences, performers include pianist Thollem McDonas (solo), McDonas and bass clarinetist Arrington de Dionyso, and the William Hooker Ensemble. This concert is presented in partnership with the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University.

Pianist Thollem McDonas tours throughout North American and Europe as a solo pianist, vocalist and collaborator, performing unique composed and spontaneous post-classical and hyphenated music. Growing up in San Francisco, he began studying the keyboard repertoire from the medieval to the 20th century, going on to earn degrees in both piano performance and composition. After working in grassroots political and ecological movements, he returned to his focus on music about five years ago, recording and touring, and leading large ensemble free improvisation workshops. As a youngster, Arrington de Dionyso was fascinated equally by all forms of “World Music” and the aggressive energy of punk rock. He pushes the registers of both voice and bass clarinet to their furthest extremes, integrating throatsinging, free jazz multiphonics, and the serious study of trance-inducing and shamanic musical forms found throughout the world. These two musicians have collaborated on a regular basis for ten years, in duo and larger ensembles, and have released four recordings. Their work emphasizes extremes, using repeating phrases that constantly evolve, often at intense velocity. Often compared to Cecil Taylor because of the physicality of his improvising, McDonas noted, “I believe it is not necessary to try to emulate him in order to pay tribute to him.”

Known as one of the most innovative drummers, composers, and bandleaders of his generation, William Hooker has led many ensembles of improvised and new music. Accompanying musicians have included Billy Bang, Thurston Moore, David Murray, David S. Ware, William Parker, Melvin Gibbs, Donald Miller, DJ Olive, Elliot Sharpe, Malachi Thompson, Zeena Parkins, Lee Ranaldo, DJ Spooky, Rob Brown, Roy Campbell, Mark Hennen, Steven Bernstein, Roy Nathanson, Jason Hwang, Glenn Spearman, Joseph Celli, Ellen Christi, and many more. For this concert, Hooker’s ensemble will include Mark Hennen (piano) and Larry Roland (Bass) and Matt Lavelle (trumpet).

Note the May 17th evening with Cecil Taylor is sold out. For tickets to Celebrating Cecil events:

 Harlem Stage Gatehouse,150 Convent Av at West 135th Street – http://harlemstage.org

 Issue Project Room, 22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn - www.issueprojectroom.org

 Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue – http://anthologyfilmarchives.org

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