new Cecil Taylor book coming, possibly June

[romualdo]

 

extract from Burning Ambulance for up & coming CT book (thanks for the tip William M) - not sure of the author's name - doesn't appear to be mentioned in the article

In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor,

This Is Not The Cover Of My Next Book BURNING AMBULANCE APR 17     READ IN APP   Untitled painting by Martel Chapman It’s official: my next book, In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor, is in its final stages of production. Thanks to the efforts of the brilliant and generous folks at Wolke Verlag in Berlin, it will include an index; photos from Val Wilmer, Dagmar Gebers, and others; and a foreword by German jazz journalist Markus Müller (author of FMP: The Living Music, also published by Wolke). I had originally planned for the image above, a painting by Martel Chapman, to be the cover. I commissioned it from him because I loved the work he’d done on Victor Gould’s albums Clockwork and Thoughts Become Things, and Nduduzo Makhathini’s In the Spirit of Ntu. But the Wolke folks said no, that they couldn’t make it work from a design perspective. They sent me a cover mockup using the painting, and they were right; it didn’t look nearly as good as some of the other ideas they offered, using more traditional — but still quite vivid — photos of Taylor. So we agreed on one of the other options, and as soon as the typography and color scheme are finalized, I’ll show it to you.  At this point, we’re hoping to send it to the printer by the end of May, and have it done by sometime in June. (They turn things around fast on their end; I have no idea how, but I definitely appreciate it.) How long it will take to reach distributors and bookstores after that, I have no idea, but as of now, I’m guessing at a late summer/early fall street date. So right now I’m starting to drum up publicity for it, since I don’t have the budget to hire someone. If you’re a journalist reading this, and you have any interest in possibly reviewing In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor for a newspaper, magazine, website, your own newsletter, or anyplace else, hit me up and I’ll send you a PDF. I am also very available for interviews about the book, or anything else.

Edited April 18 by romualdo

[felser]

Author is Phil Freeman, who has a substack. I'm not familiar with him, but wish him the best on the book, which could be an interesting read if well researched and written.  Freeman seems to have a strong affinity for Taylor's work.

https://burningambulance.substack.com/p/the-limitations-of-style

Edited April 18 by felser

[mjazzg]

I used to look at Burning Ambulance a fair bit before it went to Substack, not sure why not since. It covered a breadth of music, not just Jazz but predominantly so.  It was always very readable.

I'm hoping this will be good. CT deserves that at the very least, lots to get in.

[bertrand]

I believe Ben Young is working on a book also.

[relyles]

8 minutes ago, bertrand said:

I believe Ben Young is working on a book also.

He has been for several years now.

[colinmce]

Young's book will be necessary.

[AllenLowe]

Phil Freeman is an absolute idiot. He knows nothing about music, regularly says bizarre things about "inside" jazz performance, and blocked me on Facebook for disagreeing with him. Honestly, I wouldn't spend 2 cents on anything he writes. He just knows nothing about jazz. I would wait for Ben Young's book. Or just listen to the music.

read this, and see if you want to spend any money on a big written by this guy; he hasn't a clue about Bird or Bebop (which he things is a music-school thing) - and how can you trust the opinion of ANY contemporary jazz writer he says these kind of things about Bird, that he lacks grit, etc.:

"Anyway, listening to this mostly makes me think about why Charlie Parker’s music has never had the impact on me that it has had on so many others. Like, I can hear that he’s a virtuoso player, and I acknowledge his influence — he changed the way players after him approached composition, improvisation, and even their tone on their instruments. But any time I read about Parker being called the greatest saxophonist ever, or whatever, I always think Sure, for one particular value of “great.”

"His melodically and harmonically adventurous, chord-flipping style (which he famously described as “playing clean and looking for the pretty notes”) is one way to play jazz. But it’s not the only way, by any means. Personally, I have always been more drawn to players with more rawness and grit to to their sound. And I don’t just mean free jazz. A lot of what Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and others — even more mainstream players like Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson — did in the 1960s was following in the footsteps of players like Illinois Jacquet, Big Jay McNeely, Red Prysock, Arnett Cobb, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and others. And that kind of music has always had a greater appeal to me than the slippery instrumental one-upmanship (Thelonious Monk, easily the greatest composer the movement produced, said, “We’re going to create something they [meaning fellow musicians] can’t steal, because they can’t play it”) of bebop. I think Jimmy Lyons is a hugely important figure, because he was able to take bebop ideas and import them into “free” or “avant-garde” settings. (I put “avant-garde” in quotes there because bebop itself was 100% avant-garde music when it first developed, in the 1940s.)

"Charlie Parker was playing publicly as early as the mid-1930s, but didn’t break out on record until 1945, because of a World War II-era recording ban, and he died in 1955. He was hugely influential and inspirational during the roughly ten-year period that he was a major figure, and bebop was a fascinating phenomenon. Almost punk in its speed and aggressiveness, but extraordinarily demanding on a technical level, it was kind of a music-school thing. It’s the kind of music you get when a bunch of young, talented men get together in a room, night after night, and start showing off for each other. “Listen to what I came up with!” “Oh, yeah? Well, how about this?” And on and on, at lightning speed. Which is exactly why it continues to appeal to many young jazz musicians.

"The Massey Hall concert was kind of the period at the end of the bebop sentence, though. The style was no longer any kind of revolution by 1953; in fact, all of its key ideas had been established by 1948, and sometimes I feel like its true legacy might be the pervasive attitude among jazz musicians that it’s the audience’s fault if they don’t like what they’re hearing. It was yesterday’s future. Personally, I’d rather listen to a lot of other things by Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach, and I just…don’t listen to Charlie Parker very often, and Bud Powell even less. But if you’ve never heard this concert — and there’s no reason why you should have! It’s from 70 years ago! — Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings is worth checking out at least once."

And I will add that Bird was on record with McShann before 1945.

Edited April 18 by AllenLowe

[Dub Modal]

That reads like a troll comment in long form. Maybe performative to some extent?

[T.D.]

Might be a generational / old fart thing on my part, but if the Young book can be counted on to appear I'll pass on Freeman.

[jlhoots]

1 hour ago, T.D. said:

Might be a generational / old fart thing on my part, but if the Young book can be counted on to appear I'll pass on Freeman.

I mainly stick to the music these days. I used to read a lot of the jazz books, but less & less.

[T.D.]

23 minutes ago, jlhoots said:

I mainly stick to the music these days. I used to read a lot of the jazz books, but less & less.

I still read jazz books, but have gotten much more selective, especially regarding titles I have to purchase rather than borrowing via interlibrary loan. I can envision going for a well-written and researched Cecil Taylor bio, but would wait to see some reviews/feedback before buying.

I admit to rarely reading liner notes (beyond a cursory scan) any more. 

[Teasing the Korean]

To write an effective book about Cecil Taylor, one must engage with the computer keyboard as Taylor engages with the piano.

[JSngry]

Computer?

 

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Computer?

 

Well, if the writer wants to revise, a computer is the way to go, though using a typewriter would be much more percussive!

[clifford_thornton]

19 hours ago, T.D. said:

Might be a generational / old fart thing on my part, but if the Young book can be counted on to appear I'll pass on Freeman.

I don't think they will be in any way similar. Whenever Ben's lands, it will be definitive. There can (and should) be more than one biography out on Mr. Taylor.

Also, as a writer, I know I have put some dumb shit in print (& not only on this board!) and it will follow me to my grave. The problem -- and not to pile on any one individual -- is when a reputation gets built on reactionary statements/tomes. 

Edited April 19 by clifford_thornton

[JSngry]

Bio or musical analysis?

 

[T.D.]

3 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

I don't think they will be in any way similar. Whenever Ben's lands, it will be definitive. There can (and should) be more than one biography out on Mr. Taylor.

Also, as a writer, I know I have put some dumb shit in print (& not only on this board!) and it will follow me to my grave. The problem -- and not to pile on any one individual -- is when a reputation gets built on reactionary statements/tomes. 

Yeah, I'm being a little unfair. I will check reviews and feedback when Freeman's book is published. I'm more likely to purchase Young...Freeman probably the library route (if available) or perhaps Kindle.

[rostasi]