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Conquistador!
''Conquistador!'' is a 1968 studio album recorded in 1966 by free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, released by Blue Note Records. Critical reception Writing for AllMusic, Scott Yanow gave the album 4.5 out of 5 stars, stating that "During the two lengthy pieces, [Jimmy] Lyons' passionate solos contrast with [Bill] Dixon's quieter ruminations while the music in general is unremittingly intense." The authors of ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' awarded the album 4 stars, calling it "an all but flawless record," and commenting: "Dark, difficult, unique, yet operating at an artful tangent to some of the other 'difficult' Blue Note music of the period, this is Taylor at his most devious." Writing for Vinyl Me Please, Brian Josephs stated: "''Conquistador!''... swerves away from ''Unit Structures fire and evokes the coolness of its cover, which features a turtlenecked Taylor slightly out of focus, hiding behind shades as he mysteriously stares into the distance. The musical elements don’t c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unit Structures
''Unit Structures'' is a 1966 studio album by free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, released by Blue Note Records. Background ''Unit Structures'' was Taylor's first album on Blue Note. He released ''Conquistador!'' on the label in the same year, with a similar lineup. Jesse Jarnow of ''Pitchfork (website), Pitchfork'' described the album as "among the most intense of the early free jazz albums". The album was accompanied with an essay written by Cecil Taylor, titled ''Sound Structure of Subculture Becoming Major Breath/Naked Fire Gesture''. Critical reception ''AllMusic'' gave the album five stars, with reviewer Scott Yanow opining that "Taylor's high-energy atonalism fit in well with the free jazz of the period but he was actually leading the way rather than being part of a movement... In fact, it could be safely argued that no jazz music of the era approached the ferocity and intensity of Cecil Taylor's". ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' awarded it three and a half stars (of a possible ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Dixon
William Robert “Bill” Dixon (October 5, 1925 – June 16, 2010) was an American composer, improviser, visual artist, activist, and educator. Dixon was one of the seminal figures in free jazz and late twentieth-century contemporary music. His was also a prominent voice arguing for artist's rights and insisting, through words and deeds, on the cultural and aesthetic richness of the African American music tradition. He played the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano, often using electronic delay and reverb. Biography Dixon hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States. His family moved to Harlem, in New York City, in 1934. He enlisted in the Army in 1944; his unit served in Germany before he was discharged in 1946. His studies in music came relatively late in life, at the Hartnette Conservatory of Music (1946–1951), which he attended on the GI Bill. He studied painting at Boston University and the WPA Arts School and the Art Students League. From 1956 to 1962, he worked at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Cyrille
Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographer Chris Kelsey wrote: "Few free-jazz drummers play with a tenth of Cyrille's grace and authority. His energy is unflagging, his power absolute, tempered only by an ever-present sense of propriety." Life and career Cyrille was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, into a Haitian family. He began studying science at St. John's University, but was already playing jazz in the evenings and switched his studies to the Juilliard School. His first drum teachers were fellow Brooklyn-based drummers Willie Jones and Lenny McBrowne; through them, Cyrille met Max Roach. Nonetheless, Cyrille became a disciple of Philly Joe Jones. His first professional engagement was as an accompanist of singer Nellie Lutcher, and he had an early recording sess ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Student Studies
''Student Studies'' is a live album by Cecil Taylor recorded in November 1966 and released on the Japanese BYG label as an untitled 2-LP set in 1973. It features a performance by Taylor with Jimmy Lyons, Alan Silva and Andrew Cyrille. The album was first released on CD by the Affinity label as ''Student Studies'', later rereleased on the Black Lion label as ''The Great Paris Concert'', and then reissued a third time as ''Student Studies'' by Fuel 2000. None of the three CD issues use the original LP cover artwork. Reception In a review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek wrote: "''Student Studies'' is an anomaly from his other recordings of the era. Not purely improvised, Taylor uses arranged sections and built-in segments for thematic and improvisational space. His meditations on short tonal studies and propulsive bursts of energy became signifiers of his later music... This is the sound of an artist at a creative peak of his improvisational and authoritative power to lead a band through th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Silva
Alan Silva (born Alan Lee da Silva; January 22, 1939 in Bermuda) is an American free jazz double bassist and keyboard player. Biography Silva was born a British subject to an Azorean/Portuguese mother, Irene da Silva, and a black Bermudian father known only as "Ruby". He emigrated to the United States at the age of five with his mother, eventually acquiring U.S. citizenship by the age of 18 or 19. He adopted the stage name of Alan Silva in his twenties. Silva was quoted in a Bermudan newspaper in 1988 as saying that although he left the island at a young age, he always considered himself Bermudian. He was raised in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, where he first began studying the trumpet, and moved on to study the upright bass. Silva is known as one of the most inventive bass players in jazz and has performed with many in the world of avant-garde jazz, including Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, and Archie Shepp. Silva performed in 1964's October ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Grimes
Henry Grimes (November 3, 1935 – April 15, 2020) was an American jazz double bassist and violinist. After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist in free jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music scene by 1970. Grimes was often presumed to have died, but he was discovered in 2002 and returned to performing. Biography Early life and career Henry Alonzo Grimes was born in Philadelphia, to parents who both had been musicians in their youth. He took up the violin at the age of 12, and then began playing tuba, English horn, percussion, finally switching to the double bass at Mastbaum Technical High School. He furthered his musical studies at Juilliard and established a reputation as a versatile bassist by the mid-1950s. Grimes recorded or performed with saxophonists Gerry Mulligan and Sonny Rollins, pianists Thelonious Monk and McCoy Tyner, singer Anita O'Day, clarinetist Benny Goodman and many others. When bassist Charles Mingus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Lyons
Jimmy Lyons (December 1, 1931 – May 19, 1986) was an American alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit. Lyons was the only constant member of the band from the mid-1960s until his death. Taylor never worked with another musician as frequently as he did with Lyons. Lyons' playing, influenced by Charlie Parker, kept Taylor's avant-garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.Kelsey, ChrisJimmy Lyons''AllMusic'' Biography Lyons was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, and raised there until the age of nine, when his mother moved the family to Harlem and then the Bronx. He obtained his first saxophone in the mid-1940s and took lessons from Buster Bailey. After high school, Lyons was drafted into the United States Army and spent 21 months on infantry duty in Korea. He then spent a year playing in army bands. Once discharged he attended New York University. By the end of the 1950s, Lyons was supporting his interest in music by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvisation often involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been compared to percussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase "eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's style. He has been referred to as being "like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings". Early life and education Cecil Percival Taylor was born on March 25, 1929, in Long Island City, Queens, and raised in Corona, Queens. Ratliff, Ben (May 3, 2012)"Lessons From the Dean of the School of Improv" ''The New York Times''. Retrieved December 9, 2017: "I recently spoke with the 83-year-old improvising pianist Cecil Taylor for about five hours over two days. One day was at his three-story home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clash (magazine)
''Clash'' is a music and fashion magazine and website based in the United Kingdom. It is published four times a year by Music Republic Ltd, whose predecessor Clash Music Ltd went into liquidation. The magazine won the Best New Magazine award in 2004 at the PPA Magazine Awards and has won other awards in England and Scotland. Most notably, it won Magazine of the Year at the 2011 Record of the Day Awards. History ''Clash'' was founded by John O'Rourke, Simon Harper, Iain Carnegie and Jon-Paul Kitching. It emerged from the long-running Dundee, Scotland-based free-listings magazine ''Vibe''. Re-launching as ''Clash Magazine'' in 2004, it won Best New Magazine award at the PPA Magazine Awards and Music Magazine of the Year at the Record of the Day Awards in 2005 and 2011 respectively. At the turn of 2011, ''Clash'' took on an entirely new look, ditching its previous glossy feel and music-led design for an altogether more artistically-led approach. In 2013 it launched a Smartphone c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Taylor Albums
Cecil may refer to: People with the name * Cecil (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name) * Cecil (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) Places Canada *Cecil, Alberta, Canada United States *Cecil, Alabama *Cecil, Georgia * Cecil, Ohio *Cecil, Oregon *Cecil, Pennsylvania *Cecil, West Virginia *Cecil, Wisconsin *Cecil Airport, in Jacksonville, Florida *Cecil County, Maryland Computing and technology *Cecil (programming language), prototype-based programming language *Computer Supported Learning, a learning management system by the University of Auckland, New Zealand Music *Cecil (British band), a band from Liverpool, active 1993-2000 *Cecil (Japanese band), a band from Kajigaya, Japan, active 2000-2006 Other uses *Cecil (lion), a famed lion killed in Zimbabwe in 2015 * Cecil (''Passions''), a minor character from the NBC soap opera ''Passions'' *Cecil (soil), the dominant red clay soil in the American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Note Records Albums
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when observing light with a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres. Most blues contain a slight mixture of other colours; azure contains some green, while ultramarine contains some violet. The clear daytime sky and the deep sea appear blue because of an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering. An optical effect called Tyndall effect explains blue eyes. Distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called aerial perspective. Blue has been an important colour in art and decoration since ancient times. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament and later, in the Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the most expensive of all pigments. In the eigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1968 Albums
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being elected leader of the Liberal Party the previous day, following the disappearance of Harold Holt. Gorton becomes the only Senator to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the House of Representatives through the 1968 Higgins by-election in Holt's vacant seat. * January 15 – The 1968 Belice earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000. * January 21 ** Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8. ** 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
