While Taylor's music proclaims as its fundamental basis the "mores
and folkways of Negroes," a history self-investigated with an "African
methodological concept,"1
his formulations
are also indebted to Western Art music in a more than fleeting way. Taylor
attended New England Conservatory of music in the early fifties. He originally
wanted to study composition, but "the department head . . . figured
that he already had one Negro [composition student], and that was enough."2 Cecil's response to racism of the academic environment
was, "that meant that to me that I had to be black if for no other
reason than that they thought that black was bad."3
Taylor, like Braxton and other black artists whose music has identifiable
traces of Western Art Music influences, was often criticized for this aspect
of his work and was told to "stop Messiaen about"4. Taylor's
answer to this sort of criticism was "I am not afraid of European influences,"5 and in
fact went so far as to say "Bartók showed me what you can do
with folk material."6 He saw himself as grasping "the energies of the European
composers, their technique, consciously, and blend[ing] this with the traditional
music of the American Negro . . . to create a new energy." This was
not something startlingly new, this kind of appropriation is part of African-American
tradition: "This is what has always happened. Ellington did it."7
developments in Taylor's early career
Taylor's first album Jazz Advance was released in 1955, when Cecil
was 22.8 For
one familiar with Taylor's contemporary work, the album seems far removed
and quite conservativeyet there are distinct elements associated with his
music present in this first release: "[H]is harmony, though not his
rhythm, is already in a world far advanced beyond bop. His soloing consists
of one contrast after another: simple dissonances versus tone clusters,
wide versus narrow octave ranges, calls versus response."9 Taylor's early music still uses a rather conventional rhythm-section
orientationthe bass still walks and the drums still swingthe horns and the
piano operate in a freer context over this "traditional" foundation.
Over the next ten years, Taylor's style came into clear focus. The album
1961 Into The Hot with the Gil Evans Orchestra is a link between
his early period and his "mature style." He had abandoned traditional
notation and dictated his scores, preferring the players not to notate them
at all. According to Archie Shepp, who played on the album "He would
play the line, and we would repeat it. That way we got a more natural feeling
for the tune and we got to understand what Cecil wanted. . .'Pots,' which
a lot of critics have called a masterpiece of modern jazz, was written this
way."10 In the Unit Structures
liner notes, Taylor would write "Western notation blocks total absorption
in the `action' playing."
Over the next few years, Taylor developed the rhthymical aspects of his
music more fully with the "free" drummers Sonny Murray and Andrew
Cyrille. The music of this period, particularly "D Trad That's What"
demonstrates an increasing rhythmic flexibility and abandonment of the traditional
4/4 time structure. Like everything else in Taylor's music, the "abandonment"
of traditional time structures was not necessarily truly an abandonment:
It seems to me that the big change we had a large
part in precipitating was the dispensing of the overt manifestation
of four. It became a concept that we no longer felt we had the necessity
of stating, but understood that we experienced it and that it was,
in many ways, the given premise ofor even the motivation of- all that we
were going to do. And that what we were going to do now was to investigate
the multiples possible, you see, so that the relationship of how Andrew
Cyrille uses his high-hat or his large cymbal, how the high-hat divides
time, how the cymbal divides time, how the bass pedal divides time, how
his sticks on the snare . . . I mean, it becomes infinite.11
the beginnings of Taylor's "mature style"
While Into The Hot and "D Trad" contained the seeds of
what was to become the mature Taylor style, the 1966 album Unit Structures
was its fruition. The liner notes, written by Taylor himself, lay out in
poetic language the musical and structural formulations which his music
has explored from that time up until the present day. The language is difficult
and arcane, and expresses itself in a non-linear but logical fashion. There
is also a great awareness of his artistic contemporaries. While he rejects
other musical formulations, he includes certain other artistic thought,
particularly in the realm of poetry. In total, these notes demonstrate a
unity of vision in which language, sound, body-movement, and history are
dialogic forces in a single, spiritual creation.
rejection of the "classic order"
The title of the notes is "Sound Structure of Subculture Becoming"a
clear reference to the Black Nationalist elements in Taylor's musicthis
is a manifesto for a new consciousness, a revisioning of Black history and
aesthetics, a culture actualized through music. Obviously aware of Western
Art music's intellectual foundations, Taylor rejects them:
Time seen not as beats to be measured after academy's
podium angle. The classic order, stone churches with pillars poised, daggers
ripping skies, castrati robed in fever pitch, stuff the stale sacrament,
bloodless meat, for the fastidious eye; `offering' sought the righteous;
only found sterility in squares/never to curl limbs in reaction to soundless
bottoms.12
Here, Taylor rejects the hierarchical nature of the classical paradigm described
as the centralized structure of the "podium angle." This "classical
order" is seen as exclusionary and divisive: only the "righteous"
are allowed. But this destructive divisiveness cleaves more than the "righteous"
from the "unrighteous;" it divides heaven and earth with its "stone
churches with pillars poised," which enact the "dagger ripping
skies." The separation of heaven and earth, (which, as I will discuss
later, Taylor views as a continuum represented on the piano keyboard), is
also a manifestation of the violent division of the body from the mind.
The violent nature of this image derives from Taylor's belief that "[t]here
are not separate parts: one body and the mind enclosed." In the "classical
order" the body has become "bloodless meat." Parts of the
body itself are sacrificed, as in the castrati. The rejection of the body
in music leads to "sterility," and the repression of the natural
reaction to "curl limbs " to the "soundless bottoms"
of music. This alienation from the body is so complete that even the "classical
order" of dance, an art based on movement, leads one away from a relationship
with body: "ballet is the studied manipulation of extremities, a calisthenic
procedure away from body center. Stillness advised by death."
relationship to concurrent musical developments
Additionally, he comments on the construction of his contemporaries who
had also believed themselves to be rejecting the "classic order."
In a clear reference to Cage, he states "Measurement of sound is its
silences." But Taylor does not promote the aesthetic Cage postulates:
"Acknowledging silence its definition in absence," and, as we
shall see, Taylor is interested in presence rather than absence. In other
contexts, he was outspokenly critical of the work of Cage and his associates.
In Four Lives In The Bebop Business Taylor states:
David Tudor is supposed to be the great pianist
of the modern Western music because he's so detached. You're damned right
he's detached. He's so detached he ain't even there. Like, he would never
get emotionally involved in it; and dig, that's the word, they don't want
to get involved with music. It's a theory, it's a mental exercise in which
the body is there as an attribute to complement that exercise. The body
is in no way supposed to get involved in it.
It's like this painter. I said, "Like that
painting of yours could have been done by a machine," and he said,
"Well, the human body is just a machine." The most exciting level
of creativity as expressed to me by these people is like that of a machine.
For them, the ultimate kicks is to be a machine.13
He sees in these artists as a "reactive occult" and accuses them
of ultimately embracing the same destructive elements that are the failings
of the order they claim to reject. He aligns them with Boulez, Babbitt,
and the other serial composers by saying "in action unknowabledetached
rationalization of inaction and detachment mathematical series, permutation
and row-underlying premise = idea precedes experience." As we shall
see, Taylor sees experience, the body, and their integration as fundamental
to the making of music which is connected in a profound way to life.
rhythmic structure and the body
Taylor proposes, in what Archie Shepp called "natural music,"14 a
music based on the body and physical experience: "Physiognomy, inherent
matter-callingstretched into sound (Layers) in rhythms regular and irregular
measuring co-existing bodies of sound." The foundation of this body-music
are rhythms "regular and irregular," as opposed those "measured
by academy's podium angle." He goes to some lengths to separate this
corporeal impulse of rhythm from those of the "classical order,"
and the destructiveness of "academy's" use of time.
Rhythm-sound energy found in the amplitude of each time unit. Time measurement as isolated matter abstracted from mind, transformed symbols thru conductor, agent speaking in angles: a movement vacuum death encircling act, defining nothing Pythagorean desert a waste land lit deafness before ultimate silent arena senses ride naked in souls.
Would then define the pelvis as cathartic region
prime undulation, ultimate communion, internal while life is becoming visible
physical conversation between all body's limbs: Rhythm is life the space
of time danced thru.15
The juxtaposition is literally the juxtaposition of life and death. By centering rhythmic impulse in the body (as opposed to the "transformed symbols thru conductor" it becomes connected to life through the integration of "all body's limbs"a reintegration of the individual. The focus on the "cathartic" pelvis in "prime undulation" brings in sexuality as well, the "ultimate communion." It signifies the connection between people, where "all body's limbs" are of more than one body. Taylor is also a dancer, and it should be noted that in many types of dancing, and particularly in modern dance, the pelvis is seen as the center from which all movement emanates. In some forms of piano technique, movement also ultimately stems from the pelvis. It is also a double reference to the "castrati robed in fever pitch"a jest at the physical removal of sexuality from Western music.
practice as self-exploration
To describe how this would actually function in the music is rather complicated.
Taylor states: "At the controlled body center, motors become knowledge
at once felt, memory which has identified sensory images resulting social
response."16 That is, the movements made in "physical conversation"
will be iterations of that which has been learned/explored in the practicing
of one's instrument ("knowledge once felt") which will be utilized
in the musical/social interaction with other players. This requires, then,
a new understanding of what "practice" is: rather than learning
"traditional" instrumental technique, Taylor sees practice as
the exploration of the relationship between one's body-self and one's instrument:
Practice is speech to one's self out of that self
metamorphosising life's `act' a musical symbol having become `which' that
has placement in creation language arrived at . . .The pupil mirrors only
the inner light, an ear having heard identifies.17
Through practice, the musician translates the dialogic relationship between their bodies and the world into a sonic understanding or "musical symbol." This "symbol" is more than just a signifier, rather its creation alters the signifiedthe "musical symbol" is not just a signifier, but an act and through this act then world itself is altered and a "feedback loop" occurs. With the actualization of the "musical symbol," the musician then recognizes the "self" as an element in the world: "the ear having heard identifies." This identification, of course, alters the musicians perception, and the external perception of the self in music mirrors the internal perception, the "inner light," and the two enter into a dialogical relationship. The music, then, is a "self metamorphosising life's `act'" in which the "musical symbol . . . has placement in creation." Creative energy springs from this dialogical relationship: "Creative energy force = swing motor reaction exchange."
the individual and the group
The music feeds on itself, building energy, each member of the Unit contributing.
We proceed inventing. The interpretation has occured.
Emotion being agressive participation defines the `acts' particularity
the root of the rhythm is its central unit of change eye acting upon motor
responses directing motions internal movement (wave).18
It seems important to note here that the `acts'
are created not just from sonic input and physical self-investigation, but
also from the physical response to the living bodies of the other musicians:
"eye acting upon motor responses." In this passage, Taylor reinforces
the idea of rhythm as the "central unit"emotion only defines the
"particulars" of the "musical symbol." Through rhythm,
the unmistakable yet mutable imprint of the "self," we are led
to particularities of its functioning, what Taylor calls the "wave"a
fluid sense of time in "rhythms regular and irregular" which become
and extension of the self (and the collective selves of the Unit) through
time:
Rhythm then is existence and existence time, content offers time quantity to shape: color, mental physical participation. Passage is search against mirror held- reveal the waters of greed running love an older child set to the pain in fire. To see music one sights the invision of stopping.
Through the corporeal building of rhythm the player addresses the material
of the composition, a "quantity to shape." But even the addressing
of the material, pitch content for example, is colored by the "mental
physical participation." It is a "search against mirror held,"
the mirror of the pupil's "inner light." The shape of the content
arises for the approach to the "quantity" through the individual
experiences of the performers, their personal history as contained in memory.
It is individual memory that Taylor is addressing in the passage "an
older child set to the pain in fire" fire is a kind of trope for the
memory and experience that "in-forms" the self.19
memory and the trope of fire
Fire and light are of particular importance in this writing, and to understand
the connection of these things to the music, it is important to understand
their relationship to Taylor`s conception of memory. I earlier quoted him
as saying "The investigation of oneself means the attempt to hear the
calling of those great black minds that have preceded one." That is,
there is a kind of inner memory which connects us to the past, with the
traditions and beliefs of our ancestors. Taylor states a particular instance
of this as "Yoruba memoir other mesh in voices mother tongue at bridge
scattering Black." A racial memory of a universal "mother tongue"
encoded in memory, particularly body memory. It scatters language among
the Black people, it scatters the Black people from each other, and as fire
it scatters the "Black," the darkness. The tongues of flame are
conflated with the tongues of language, the "mother tongue," and
it is this tongue of flame which gives the "subculture becoming"
its voice: "a set ritual song cycle in tongues the heat Harlem long
ages past rested glory from." It is a resurrection of historical memory
through the body, a recognition of the "inner light" of the the
fire which the pupil is to mirror. Yet the translation and recognition of
that energy into body and memory can be painful; "A flesh lighted scream
the beast in God screams," and the pupil as the "older child"
is "set to the pain" in his discovery of the self in the "search
against mirror held." The ultimate translation of the trope of fire
into the movements of the body which create sound is the true history of
Black music, a tradition from "long ages past" which has been
lost, but now is reborn in the new music: "Where are you Bud?. .Lightning.
. .now a lone rain falling thru doors empty of roomJazz Naked Fire Gesture,
Dancing protoplasm Absorbs."
The "Naked Fire Gesture," Taylor's music, is the "Sound Structure
of Subculture Becoming." It is a revitalizing of the spirit against
the what jazz had become. Taylor addresses the mainstreamization of jazz.
As gesture Jazz became: Billie's right arm bent at breast moving as light touch. Last moments, late father no use to sit and sigh the pastors have left us gone home to die. End to slave trade in sweet meats and rum. Larger audience means incidentals to spit mirage cracked virgin, a down side up, snikker to whine.
[Swing]20
The trope of fire gives us light, and light is one of the things Taylor
uses to describe the "content" of the "quantity to shape;"
part of the mirroring of the "inner light," through the extension
of rhythm, is pitch material, the "paths of harmonic and melodic light"
which "give architecture sound structures." Here, we begin to
understand the larger organization of Taylor's music. The "quantity"
given in is usually pitch material, small cells or aggregates of tones (you
will see examples of this in the next section where I present the "score"
of one of his pieces). These note cells are usually played through at the
beginning of the piece, which Taylor labels the "anacrusis"both
a musical and poetic reference. "Enter Evening's anacrusis consists
of 4 separate lines, unequal in length; statements with changing consecutives."
As the "paths of harmonic and melodic light," the anacruses can
be manipulate in traditional ways, such as transposition, retrograde, augmentation,
and diminution, but the lines can also be conflated to form harmonic aggregates:
"Attitude encompassing single noted line, diads, chord cluster, activated
silence." The improvisation, then, is the "conscious manipulation"
of the anacruses through the rhythmic based inviduality of the player and
the "resulting social response":
The player advances to the area, an unknown totality,
made whole thru self analysis (improvisation), the conscious manipulation
of known material; each piece is choice; architecture, particular in grain,
the specifics question-layers are disposed-deposits arrangements, group
activity establishing `Plain.'21
The resulting music is seen as multilayereda landscape of sound in which
"each instrument has strata"both within itself ("timber,
temperament"), but also as a strata within the "Plain" or
"group interaction." Taylor presents the realization of the "unknown
totality" as a physical landscape: "From Anacrusis to Plain
patterns and possibility converge, mountain sides to dry rock beds, a fountain
spread before a prairie." One of the major forces shaping this landscape
is "the piano as catalyst feeding material to the soloists in all registers."
The registral implications of the piano have direct bearing on the "landscape"
aspect of the music, as Taylor has specific associations with the registers
of the piano: "two or three octaves below middle C is the area of the
abyss, and the middle range is the surface of the earth, the astral being
the upper register."22
It is difficult to talk about the form, the "unknown totality"
of the landscape of this music, the "Naked Fire Gesture." Taylor
has broken down completely the older concept of form in jazz, where a particular
harmonic sequence delineates the overall structure of the piece. Now the
individual musicians through the "conscious manipulation" of the
anacrusis, create the form"form is possibility." The "form"
of the music is really a dialogue between an individual's "inner light"
and "social response," where "intuition and given material
mix group interaction." It is an "opening field of question"
where "content, quality and change growth in addition to direction
found."
It is on this macroscopic level that Taylor betrays the influences of contemporary
poetryboth in conception and vernacular. While his poetic language is at
time reminiscent of Pound, his construction demonstrates awareness of the
Black Mountain poets, and in particular Charles Olson's essay "Projective
Verse."23 In this essay, Olson lays out a manifesto for open-form
poetry, in what he calls "composition by field"like Taylor's "opening
field of question." Olson states that, in this kind of poetry, the
poem is "energy transferred," and that the poem "must, at
all points, be a high energy-construct, and at all points, and energy-discharge."
In open-form poetry "form is never more than an extension of content,"24 which, again, is similar to Taylor's "form is possibility"
and content derived from the anacrusis. Olson implores that "ONE PERCEPTION
MUST IMMEDIATELY AND DIRECTLY LEAD TO A FURTHER PERCEPTION," an understanding
which can easily be applied to the "self analysis" of improvisation.
The building blocks of this poetry are also organically rooted in the body:
"the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the SYLLABLE/the HEART, by way of
the BREATH, to the LINE."
While the connections between musical formulations espoused in Unit Structures
and the poetic formulations of Black Mountain Poets is obvious, Taylor by
no means wholly adopted them. Rather, it is merely another example of the
kind of appropriation that he sees as part of the his role "to create
a new energy," and, just like his "European influences,"
is subjected to "African methodology." Through his corporeal musical
investigation, the "self metamorphosing life's `act,'" he has
incorporated the precepts of contemporary poetry in an organic way. It is
part of his experience which "in-forms" him: "Dancing protoplasm
Absorbs."
1 Figi, 31. back
2 Spellman, 55. back
3 Ibid. back
4 This is actually a criticism
of Braxton, but similar allegations were made against Taylor. Scott Albin,
"Caught, Anthony Braxton Quartet, " Down Beat (March 25,
1976), 41. back
5 Spellman, 27. back
6 Ibid., 28. back
7 Ibid. back
8 This is an extremely brief synopsis
of Taylor's early recording career. For a more complete analysis, from 1955
up until the early 1980's, see John Litweiler's The Freedom Principal:
Jazz After 1958 (New York: Da Capo ,1984), 200-221. I disagree, for
reasons I will make clear later, with Litweiler's assertion that Into
The Hot is the pivotal album which begins the kind of exploration Taylor
has continued up until the present. back
9 Ibid., 202. back
10 Spellman, 44. back
11 Figi, 14. back
12 Cecil Taylor, Unit Structers,
liner notes; (Blue Note, BST-84237, 1966). back
13 Spellman, 36. back
14 Ibid.,43. back
15 Taylor, liner notes; Unit
Structures. back
16 Ibid. back
17 Ibid. back
18 Ibid. back
19 I do not know whether there
is some personal history involved with Taylor and fire, some early childhood
incident for example. Anecdotes from his childhood are few, and even if
one seemingly pertinent existed, it would not necessarily be relevant. back
20 Ibid. back
21 Ibid. back
22 Figi, 31. back
23 Originally published in Poetry
of New York, vol. 3 in 1950, reprinted in Selected Writings of Charles
Olson, ed. Robert Creeley (New York; New Directions 1967),15-30. back
24 Olson attributes this statement
to Robert Creeley. back