Transfigured Night 8/25/07

After extended broadcasts in memory of a great drummer and a great trombonist, I may only hope to be forgiven by their respective memories for my desire to devote the four-hour sound walk we call Transfigured Night to some of the finest examples of pianism. And few, I think, would long dispute Cecil Taylor's position as a fortuitous starting point in considering modern interpretations of this specific instrumental nexus of compositional arrangement of sound and performative, mechanical production of sound (improvisation = instant composition), which is to what I refer with such a (possibly nonetheless unforgivable) -ism. The first selection, a Cecil Taylor-led performance of, in order, "Bemsha Swing" - one of Thelonious Monk's standards, his own composition, "Charge 'em Blues," and Duke Ellington's haunting "Azure" provide an even more traditional-jazz-oriented beginning for the program than the 1950's date would imply. But we are not dealing with tradition for long, and by the fourth, most recent, and final C.T. piece, the music, jazzmusic even still, has undoubtedly attained that state of almost disturbing aural freeness that some dealers in "Jazz" like to hold at arm's length. Here, it don't mean a thing if it do got that swing, and the presence of such musicians as Tomasz Stánko and Frank Wright, in addition to Taylor's irrepressible sound, on "Winged Serpent" render the lexicon of jazz performance and composition less productive of new understandings in my opinion than a treatment of the music within the context of New Music. To this end, I devoted over an hour to certain solo piano compositions of Iannis Xénakis, whose methods of structuring sound have a lot to say to Mr. Taylor's music, which in turn adds new dimensions to the exhilaration of listening to Xénakis. A guest on a recent on-air interview as part of our Afternoon New Music felt content to reply to a detailed question with one word - Cage - and I am tempted to do the same. The late, sparse, solo piano pieces of the figurehead of American new music force one to revisit anew the complicated sound densities of Taylor and Xénakis. Our program, now nearing six o'clock a.m., closed with selections from a recent release from the perpetually interesting Emanem record label, featuring overdubbings of the piano of Howard Riley, an uncertain sound classified absurdly on the back of the CD as "Mostly Free Improvisation." M.D.


1)Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy, Buell Neidlinger, Dennis Charles
Title: Bemsha Swing, Charge 'em Blues, Azure (recorded 9/14/1956)
Album: In Transition (1975)
Label: Blue Note

2)Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Lyons, Kurt Lindgren, Sunny Murray
Title: Spontaneous Improvisation (recorded 10/1962)
Album: The Early Unit 1962
Label: Ingo Sixteen

3)Cecil Taylor, Sam Rivers, Jimmy Lyons, Andrew Cyrille
Title: Second Act of A (selections) (recorded 7/29/1969)
Album: The Great Concert of Cecil Taylor
Label: Prestige

4)Cecil Taylor Segments II (Orchestra of Two Continents)
Title: Winged Serpent (recorded 10/1984)
Album: Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants)
Label: Soul Note

5)Composer: Iannis Xénakis
Title: Mists (1980), Herma (1961), à r. (1987), Akea (1986), Evryali (1973)
All Solo Piano pieces performed by Claude Helffer. Arditti string quartet also on "Akea."
Album: Chamber Music 1955-1990
Label: Auvidis Montaigne

6)Composer: John Cage
Title: Music for Two (1985), One (1987), One5 (1991)
Performed by Stephen Drury
Album: The Piano Works I
Label: Mode

7)Howard Riley
Music for two pianos overdubbed
Album: Two is One (2005)
Label: Emanem


Host: Marlow Davis