Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday April 20th, 2016 with Bernard Stepien
Cecil Taylor – Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!

From the ‘70s on, pianist Cecil Taylor embarked on a piano solo stretch that gave symphonic proportions to his music. Both rhythmic and harmonic freedom is the prime agenda, but all is achieved with pretty melodies, a harmonic system totally different than what the Jazz tradition proposed so far. In his music, even dissonances sound harmonic. Tonight we will explore a recording from 1980 by the MPS label recorded in Villingen in the heart of the Black Forest where a few decades earlier, Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson was treated with the same honors. A quote from the master himself (2004): “The joy of practicing leads you to the celebration of the creation-creation is what it’s about, not technique. You use technique to make the statement, but the statement must be out of what you have discovered in your preparation.”