| Looking (Berlin Version) Solo | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | 1990 | |||
| Recorded | November 1, 1989 | |||
| Genre | Free jazz | |||
| Label | FMP | |||
| Cecil Taylor chronology | ||||
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Looking (Berlin Version) Solo is a live album featuring a solo performance by Cecil Taylor recorded in Berlin on November 1, 1989, and released on the FMP label. [1]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [2] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [3] |
The AllMusic review by Brian Olewnick states: "This live performance isn't outstandingly different from numerous others, but is nonetheless fascinating, exciting, and beautiful... If he'd mellowed a bit by this time, Taylor was still quite capable of working up a storm that dwarfed the efforts of 99 percent of those who attempted to emulate him, and did so with a balletic grace that his imitators could only dream of... The five brief concluding pieces are simply marvelous -- concise studies that gleam like rubies, concentrated nuggets of power and delicacy that no one but Taylor could ever create... Highly recommended". [2]
John Corbett wrote: "A relaxed, slightly reserved Taylor emerges here, full of flame but more than ever investigating a kind of majesty, grandeur, lyricism, and elegance. Sustain helps, and he's never used the pedal so much. This rounds some of the more percussive angles of his music; it lets him savor a bit, emphasizing intervallic as much as rhythmic density. Over the years, Taylor has developed several trademarks strategies: mirror image left and right hands (sort of instant retrograde inversion), stately bass chord figures; identical patterns rapidly shifted from register. On the long piece that forms the bulk of this recording, these are contrasted, mutated, grafted together, and truncated, serving both as genetic material and as thematic guideposts through the underbrush of improvisation." [4]
Writing for Burning Ambulance, Phil Freeman commented:
The piano sounds like a gigantic steel harp at times, the strings zinging and seeming to fly loose. The notes have a sharp edge, like the keys are made of glass. He moves with inhuman rapidity from barrages of single-note strikes like raindrops hitting a pond, spaced just far enough apart that each one can be heard landing, to clanging chords possibly struck with his entire forearm, to rumbling bass-line-ish figures succeeded by clusters of high notes like a thousand glass beads striking a marble floor and bouncing every which way. The two long sections that begin the performance seem arbitrarily divided; it could just as easily be a single hour-long piece as two half-hour ones, since it's not like Taylor even stops for breath. Throughout the marathon, he can be heard cackling softly and hissing and meowing along with the sounds produced by his sharp, pointed fingers. When he winds his way to a slow, descending sequence of notes, repeating the final low note once like the period at the end of a hundred-page-long sentence, it has a finality that makes you feel like anything else you do all day will be an anticlimax. And yet... the five encores that follow don't seem like afterthoughts or footnotes; they share enough melodic and conceptual DNA with the big piece that they're Taylor's way of saying "and another thing..." and expanding on his thesis just a little bit more. [5]
All compositions by Cecil Taylor.
Cecil Percival Taylor was an American pianist and poet.
Shades is the fifth album on the Impulse label by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. Originally released in 1976, it features performances by Jarrett's 'American Quartet', which included Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian with Guilherme Franco added on percussion.
Looking Ahead! is the second album by pianist Cecil Taylor, recorded for the Contemporary label in June 1958. The album features performances by Taylor with Buell Neidlinger, Denis Charles, and Earl Griffith.
Cecil Taylor Unit is an album by Cecil Taylor recorded in April 1978 and released on the New World label. The album features three performances by Taylor on piano with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, trumpeter Raphe Malik, violinist Ramsey Ameen, bassist Sirone and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. The album was recorded during the same sessions that produced 3 Phasis. Taylor is heard on a 96-key Bösendorfer piano about which he commented: it "will stop you cold if you're not ready."
Live in the Black Forest is a live album by Cecil Taylor recorded in June 1978 at the SWF-Radio JazzConcert in Kirchzarten, Black Forest, West Germany, and released on the MPS label. The album features two performances by Taylor with Raphe Malik, Jimmy Lyons, Ramsey Ameen, Sirone and Ronald Shannon Jackson.
One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye is a live album by Cecil Taylor recorded in Stuttgart, Germany, on June 14, 1978 and released on the Hat Hut label. The album features performances by Taylor with Raphe Malik, Jimmy Lyons, Ramsey Ameen, Sirone and Ronald Shannon Jackson. The album was originally released as a triple LP featuring the Cecil Taylor Unit performances then rereleased as a double CD with duets by Lyons & Malik and Ameen & Sirone and a solo by Shannon Jackson added and the titles changed to the performers for each track.
Olu Iwa is a live album by Cecil Taylor recorded in Berlin, Germany on April 12, 1986 and released on the Soul Note label. The album features a concert performance by Taylor with Thurman Barker, William Parker and Steve McCall with Earl McIntyre, Peter Brötzmann and Frank Wright added on one track.
In East Berlin is an album featuring two concerts by Cecil Taylor, one solo and one accompanied by Günter Sommer, recorded in Berlin on June 20 and 21, 1988 as part of a month-long series of concerts by Taylor and released on the FMP label.
Remembrance is a live album featuring a performance by Cecil Taylor and Louis Moholo recorded in Berlin on July 3, 1988 as part of month-long series of concerts by Taylor and released on the FMP label.
Legba Crossing is a live album featuring a performance by Cecil Taylor's Workshop Ensemble recorded in Berlin on July 15, 1988 as part of month-long series of concerts by Taylor and released on the FMP label. Taylor did not play the piano on this album, but instead directed the ensemble and contributed vocalizations.
Erzulie Maketh Scent is a live album featuring a solo performance by pianist Cecil Taylor recorded in Berlin on July 16, 1988 as part of month-long series of concerts by Taylor and released on the FMP label.
Looking Corona is a live album featuring performances by Cecil Taylor with Harald Kimmig, Muneer Abdul Fataah, William Parker and Tony Oxley recorded in Berlin on November 3 & 4, 1989 and released on the FMP label.
Looking The Feel Trio is a live album featuring performances by Cecil Taylor with William Parker and Tony Oxley recorded in Berlin on November 2, 1989 and released on the FMP label.
The Willisau Concert is a live solo piano album by American musician Cecil Taylor. It was recorded on September 3, 2000, at the Jazzfestival Willisau, and was released in 2002 by Intakt Records. On the album, Taylor is heard on a 97-key Bösendorfer Imperial piano.
Algonquin is a live album by American pianist Cecil Taylor. It was recorded on February 12, 1999, at the Library of Congress, which commissioned the work, and was released in 2004 by Bridge Records as part of their series "Great Performances from the Library of Congress". On the album, Taylor is joined by violinist Mat Maneri.
Taylor/Dixon/Oxley is a live album by pianist Cecil Taylor, trumpeter Bill Dixon, and drummer Tony Oxley. It was recorded on May 19, 2002 during the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec, and was released in 2002 by Les Disques Victo.
Almeda is a live album by Cecil Taylor recorded during the "Total Music Meeting" at the "Podewil", the headquarters of the Kulturprojekte Berlin non-profit organisation, on November 2, 1996, and released in 2004 on the FMP label. The album features Taylor with eight other musicians, and is a recording of a single performance lasting over an hour. The same group recorded the album The Light of Corona the following day. In 2012, FMP also released Almeda , with the same musicians, as part of their Archive Edition.
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Ailanthus/Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions of 2 Root Songs is a live album by pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Tony Oxley. It was recorded at the Village Vanguard in New York City on November 6 and 9, 2008, and was released in limited quantities as a double LP set by Triple Point Records in 2010.
Actions is a live album featuring debut performances of works by composer Krzysztof Penderecki and trumpeter and composer Don Cherry. It was recorded on October 17, 1971, at the Donaueschingen Festival in Donaueschingen, Germany, and was released on LP later that year by Philips. The music was performed by an ensemble called The New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra, composed of top European improvisors. In 1998, the album was reissued on CD by Transparency Records. It was remastered and reissued again in 2001 by Intuition Records.