i am a huge fan of cecil taylor, all his music. but i have a special
place in my heart for the album on impulse, mixed. maybe easier
to handle, more melodic. thoughts?

dave

First, it is only half Cecil recording from 1961, the other half is a Roswell Rudd recording from 1966, thus the title of Mixed. I have Mixed feelings.


It's Cecil, so unless we are talking about the Leo recording poetry stuff, it's going to be at worst, great.

Now if I were going to be recommending Cecil Taylor to a newbie, it wouldn't be this one. It would be two of the Blue Notes (Jazz Advance or Love for Sale) & Candid recordings. He does include covers of Duke, Monk, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Cole Porter. Therefore, you're not going to get anymore melodic. At least not when discussing Cecil Taylor. The newbie would also get a full record/cd of Cecil, and not just a few tracks.

It is after those recordings on Mixed, which Cecil moves on to free jazz and later free impro.

my feelings with this album are so strong because of the transitional feeling
of the music, inheridantly. i love his 50's stuff and candid recordings as well
as his bluenote releases in the late 60's, but there's something about his bands
tracks on "mixed" that really strike me hard. murray's drumming, for such an
early recording, has that mix of swing and free...as a drummer, i love this.
brings up an interesting question actually: are there earlier "free" drumming
recordings before this release on impulse?

another thing about the 3 tracks of taylor's on mixed is the melodocism and
collective/arranged improvisation. did taylor record more with this group?
i own "trance" and have heard "nefertiti" but they have a much more compact
lineup. like both and am aware they were recorded close to the time of mixed,
basically. what about recordings of taylor and ayler? didn't they play together,
or were supposed to?

i don't care as much for the second half of the release, rudd's recordings from
66'...they're not bad, but taylor's make this a musthave for this jazz fan.