2 Blues for Cecil (TUM Records)
Andrew Cyrille, William Parker & Enrico Rava
Released January 21, 2022
Slate Best Jazz Albums of 2022
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=dC_gZkMD40k
About:
Enrico Rava and Andrew Cyrille are among the elders of improvised music with their careers going back to the 1960s. William Parker rose to prominence during New York´s loft jazz era of the 1970s. The three musicians share one major link in their respective careers. Namely, they all have at different times been members of Cecil Taylor Unit or other ensembles of the legendary late pianist and bandleader Cecil Taylor.
Rava, Parker and Cyrille first performed together as a trio in a tribute to Cecil Taylor, with Taylor himself present, at the Whitney Museum in April 2016 as part of an exhibit/program under the heading “Open Plan: Cecil Taylor.” 2 Blues For Cecil was recorded on February 1 and 2 at Studio Ferber in Paris following the trio´s concert on December 31, 2020 under the heading “Tribute to Cecil Taylor” as part of the Sons d´hiver festival in Paris.
While 2 Blues For Cecil features compositions by all three of its members and even a standard, the emphasis is on improvisation. Four of the ten tracks are extended collective improvisations, including two versions of “Blues for Cecil.” The trio does not seek to emulate Cecil Taylor´s approach to creating music but rather draws on all the experiences, separate and shared, of its members.
“Cecil was a spokesman for individuality, a musical warrior always operating on a high level,” says Parker. “He was not avant-garde, he was a human being who loves life as music. He would not be boxed in by the music world´s value system that asks artists to conform to their standards.”
Although Andrew Cyrille was already an accomplished young musician at the time, his international breakthrough came with his membership in the Cecil Taylor Unit, which lasted for over a decade (1964-75), during which he established his position as one of the leading drummers in freely improvised music and participated in some of Taylor´s most legendary recordings. More than five decades later, Cyrille is still considered to be one of the most creative and versatile percussionists in modern jazz, equally at home in a modern mainstream setting as with more avant-garde music.
Similarly, William Parker first recorded with Frank Lowe, Billy Bang and many others in the 1970s but became internationally recognized when performing with the Cecil Taylor Unit in 1980-91 and participating in more than ten recordings led by Taylor. Parker is now best known for the many groups he has led or co-led over the past four decades. As well as being an improviser, writer and poet, Parker is a prolific composer and has composed everything from operas, oratorios, ballets and film scores to soliloquies for solo instruments. To date, he has participated in approximately 500 recordings with well over 50 albums under his own leadership.
Enrico Rava began his career in his native Italy in the mid-1960s but his work with saxophonists Gato Barbieri and Steve Lacy led to years spent living in New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s and working with many of the musicians then active on the New York improvised music scene. Soon, Rava began recording under his own name. With more than 50 recordings as a leader or co-leader, he is one of the most internationally known Italian jazz musicians and one of the best known in all of Europe. Although Rava met Cecil Taylor in the late 1960s in New York City, the two performed together for the first time almost two decades later, first in Taylor´s Orchestra Of Two Continents in 1984 and then in the Cecil Taylor European Orchestra in 1988.
Track Listing:
1. Improvisation No. 1 10:55
2. Ballerina 06:32
3. Blues for Cecil No. 1 10:09
4. Improvisation No. 2 06:28
5. Top, Bottom and What´s in the Middle 07:18
6. Blues for Cecil No. 2 08:42
7. Enrava Melody 05:32
8. Overboard 05:49
9. Machu Picchu 05:40
10. My Funny Valentine 03:10
Personnel:
Enrico Rava: flugelhorn
William Parker: double bass
Andrew Cyrille: drums
Recorded February 1 and 2, 2021, at Studios Ferber, by Ludovic Lanen
Assistant Engineer: Matthieu Lefèvre
Mixed by Miikka Huttunen
Mastered by Pauli Saastamoinen
Photograph of Cecil Taylor: Lázló Ruska
Design: Juha Lökström
Produced by Petri Haussila
Review:
Three of the finest improvisers—trumpeter Enrico Rava, bassist William Parker, and drummer Andrew Cyrille—join together for the first time in zestful interplay, at once hot and cool (mainly cool), grippingly balanced, much of it invented on the spot, though it’s capped off with a standard, “My Funny Valentine,” that doesn’t sound at all out of place. The album’s title refers to the late Cecil Taylor, with whom all three have played, though the music here is more melodic and always accessible.
Fred Kaplan (Slate)
