Luyah! The CECIL TAYLOR albums poll!

How could Unit Structures lose?

I'm being super-perverse/super-honest and casting my vote for Chinampas.

3 Phasis. I also prefer Conquistador to Unit Structures.

wish i knew more, all i've heard is 'world of cecil taylor' which is quite good, but i'm not going to vote if i've only heard one album.

Conquistador for me!

I feel unqualified to vote as there's so much I'm not familiar with. Ones I have heard and like:

Jazz Advance
Looking Ahead!
Unit Structures
Nefertiti
various other stuff from a boxed set with Buell Nedligner

Nefertiti's worth any asking price for "D Trad, That's What" alone. But Salty Swift is a mighty, mighty group set. I'd say Garden was the best solo Cecil album.

Yeah, I gotta go with Conquistador! But Alms/Tiergarten (Spree) is an ASTOUNDING large-scale work.

I do need to get more Cecil Taylor albums.

Man, too much here that I haven't heard, but Conquistador! is my favorite of the ones I do have.

I've heard less than ten of these -- don't think I've even heard of half of them -- but my favorite so far is One Too Many Salty Swift because his themes have extra room/time to stretch out and build up & it's the closest to a live performance of those I've heard.

Silent Tongues

How could Unit Structures lose?

this

I think the recording quality is pretty bad on Unit Structures - the piano is often buried in the mix. That alone would make me hesitate.

I own or have owned 39 of the above-listed titles, which makes it pretty near fucking impossible to choose. If/when I do, though, it's probably gonna wind up being a solo disc, despite my burning love for the 1978 Unit (the band heard on The Cecil Taylor Unit, 3 Phasis, Live In The Black Forest and One Too Many Salty Swift And Not Goodbye). I will say that the Taylor/Tony Oxley/Bill Dixon record is very underrated. Taylor doesn't even sound like himself for most of it; he really seems to be inhabiting Bill Dixon's universe, rather than leading/taking over the way he usually does.

(Conquistador is my 2nd choice after Unit Structures, but I have heard no more than 8-10 taylor records TOPS.)

The solo piano stuff, while often FASCINATING and GREAT for really close listening does a lot less for me in situations where I'm not paying much of attention--be it while reading, working, having a conversation. But Unit Structures just seems like such an incredible mindfuck of a record. A total, seething mess of tension and dissonance with these moments of incredible beauty/clarity-of-vision. A record that doesn't even give you the option of ignoring it. Shit, I think I will listen to it RIGHT NOW.

nefertiti for me cos it's about the only one i know. but love it to bits nonetheless. would like to pick up some of the FMP discs but they're just too damn expensive.

Have no more than a fraction of these (who has most of them and do they post here?), but I still voted for:

It Is In The Brewing Luminous (1980)

With mentions for parts of 'Embraced' (this date is rubbished, but I think it holds a fascination for me), 'Silent Tongues', 'Chinampas', the 'Nuits...' sets, the record w/Derek as well as 'The Hearth', but the ensembles he had in the late 70s reached a peak in how the conception comes off, that particular set has long standing sidemen as well as relative newcomers grappling with the music, ending with some classic Cecil baby babbling. This date translates v well to an event of seismic proportions on record.

But it could be that it ws my first rec by him.

I voted for "Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants)." I own eleven of the above, and I've seen CT a few times.

I bought "Winged Serpent" due to the write-up in the Penguin Guide. They're right. It deserves way more attention. Great ensemble.

>(who has most of them and do they post here?)

As I said above, I own or have owned (sold a few here and there but they're all on my hard drive) 39 of 'em, including the 10CD 2 Ts For A Lovely T, which is a live boxed set by the Feel Trio: Taylor, William Parker on bass and Tony Oxley on drums.

I've seen Taylor four times: once each with three different trios, and once leading a big band/orchestra group. Best one was an Avery Fisher hall gig that was half solo, half trio; worst was the big band thing, which was mostly just blare.

I will treat the results of this poll as my buying guide.

Funnily enough i picked up an old copy of Wire Magazine in a Tokyo thrift store yesterday - think it was from 2004 with Ghost on the cover. Anyway, it had a nicely written primer on CT. The 1988 Berlin sessions got big props. It's a shame that set isn't available in a box anymore. Plus, I didn't know he'd released an album with John Coltrane (under Coltrane's name) - the music's terrible apparently!

In Florescence was my first, but I'm pretty sure "Silent Tongues" is my most listened. Something about solo Cecil just seems right to me, not that Jimmy Lyons and Buell Neidlinger and Andrew Cyrille and all them don't mean much - they do!

I love the playing of Ken McIntyre on Unit Structures and wish he appeared on more albums (not just Cecil's but ANYBODY'S). And it's his playing that gives that album the nod over Conquistador!. All of my favourites (of the dozen-or-so I own) have that kind of clattering body-falling-downstairs momentum that really defines for me what that whole "energy music" thing was really all about. The only "solo" Cecil I have is Silent Tongues, but I like it enough to wish I had more whenever I play it. Nefertiti! has my favourite Sunny Murray performance on record.

Also, there's one a friend cassette-taped for me years ago whose title neither of us can recall! It's a live Taylor/Lyons/Cyrille (has to be) performance about 70 minutes long.

went for "Nefertiti" .. the recordings that changed it all

although .. "Great Concert" is certainly up there for the jaw-dropping endurance-test aspect of the whole thing ... whew!

that New World group with Ronald Shannon Jackson totally rules, but i don't think of it as Cecil's most emblematic stuff..

i love love LOVE "Leaf Palm Hand", the Oxley duo, but again I just can't place it above the ground-breaking "Nefertiti".

"In Florescence" was also my first but I voted for "Air Above Mountains..." since I'm a sucker for solo CT and it's an astounding performance.

Plus, I didn't know he'd released an album with John Coltrane (under Coltrane's name) - the music's terrible apparently!

it's a good record, but cecil's holding back. supposedly kenny dorham hated cecil's music, and was being kind of a dick to him at the session.

unperson, otm re: taylor/dixon/oxley. the critics weren't kind to this record, but it's among my top two or three cecil records (one of the others being the other one with dixon, conquistador!). dixon was one of the very few players who could really push cecil into previously-unexplored territory. they recorded a duo album in 1992 that is still unreleased.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Ultimately I had to go with Air Above Mountains, the most purely beautiful of his solo discs, to my ear anyway.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

This looks like a bit of a no brainer: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JWS9I9U
9 Cecil Taylor albums for 10 quid! Only one review but packaging & sound quality don't seem to be an issue.

Not "complete" by any means -- his Candid material alone (of which NYC R&B and The World of Cecil Taylor are part) has its own 4CD box (The Complete Nat Hentoff Sessions, previously a Mosaic set). Also, no alternate/bonus tracks.

Still a good deal, though.

'Complete' box sets should be approached with caution, sure.

Just out of interest, is the 'Live at the Cafè Montmartre' disc the same date as the 'Nefertiti' set on Revenant? (which i already have)

Yep, you'd be doubling that material. And I'm pretty sure the Montmartre set is maybe 1/3rd of what's on the Revenant set.

Also, you probably know that Cecil's only on half of Into The Hot.

Echoing what's already been said, a lot of that material isn't great. You're much better off picking up the aforementioned Complete Nat Hentoff Sessions box, which actually has more material than the old Mosaic box (it includes the live-at-Newport tracks from the split album with Gigi Gryce included in the box you linked).

The Complete Nat Hentoff Sessions set is unfortunately more than twice the price of the set that millmeister links to.

All these albs are out of copyright in Europe now - I have this set, which omits the Montmartre disc and is a little bit cheaper still:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/7-Classic-Albums-Cecil-Taylor/dp/B00B1D6XJW/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1406143914&sr=1-1&keywords=cecil+taylor+seven+albums

Sound quality is excellent. They also do a good Sun Ra set of similarly out-of-copyright material:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Classic-Albums-Audio-Sun/dp/B007VA1YE8/ref=pd_sim_m_h__1?ie=UTF8&refRID=03ZM8D9V6K242SG6K82Z

Yeah, those Real Gone sets seem to be OK. I have the Blakey set (19 albums! 10 CDs! $20!), and it sounds great.

I bought the Real Gone set myself just last month - well worth it, even though I already owned a few of the albums. (Nice that those two half-Cecil albums are included)

Thanks for all the advice. Will investigate the Real Gone / Nat Hentoff Sessions.

winged serpent has a lot of chunky mass, fat horns

is this comment pro or anti or merely descriptive

i suppose theoretically someone could feel a need for skinny horns but

looking ahead is a decent little album

Tremendous and long sustained energy on Akisakila. I only wish the 40 min sets were broken up into shorter tracks.

I try listening to a new Cecil Taylor record every few years to see if I "get it" yet. I've been trying with Indent, also recorded in 1973, but I can't parse it. It's not unpleasant. Unit Structures and 3 Phasis I appreciated without having to make such an effort!

I’m that way w a lot of artists and this probably not gonna help you or w/e but a big thing for his work clicking with me was the degree I started recognizing his playing as percussive.

Too late, but I would have voted for Nefertiti, The Beautiful One Has Come.

percussive and with complex tone clusters, which reached a peak with 2 Ts For a Lovely T