''Melancholy'' is a live album by Cecil Taylor's Workshop Ensemble featuring

Evan Parker Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation. Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free ja ...

Barry Guy Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras ...

and

Tony Oxley Tony Oxley (born 15 June 1938) is an English free improvising drummer and one of the founders of Incus Records. Biography Oxley was born in Sheffield, England. A self-taught pianist by the age of eight, he first began playing the drums at s ...

recorded on September 30, 1990, at the Bechstein Concert Hall in Berlin and released on the FMP label.Cecil Taylor sessionography
accessed 4 September 2009

Reception

The

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

review by Steven Loewy states "Taylor is unquestionably more effective as an arranger in the small group (and solo) contexts to which he is accustomed. With the ensemble, there is a sense that ideas are not always fully realized, although, to be sure, there are remarkable moments throughout. Whether charges of incomplete or confusing rehearsals are accurate is immaterial. What matters is that the results, while good, probably could have been better. Regardless, Taylor aficionados will want to own this one because of the players in the band and because of the extraordinary moments". The authors of the

Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

wrote: "it is... enough to have other composers and arrangers slack-jawed, with three pieces that put an evolving structure through complex changes and developments. If the middle section, 'Sphere No. 2', seems like a bonding of improvisors, then 'Sphere No. 3' expands to a glorious reconciliation of free solos and composed and implicit structures."

Track listing

:''All compositions by Cecil Taylor.'' # "Sphere No. 1" - 20:33 # "Sphere No. 2" - 20:36 # "Sphere No. 3" - 28:59 :* Recorded at the Bechstein Concert Hall, Berlin on September 30, 1990

Personnel

* Cecil Taylor:

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

* Tobias Netta:

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

* Wolfgang Fuchs: sopranino saxophone, bass clarinet *

Harri Sjöström Harri Sjöström (born February 29, 1952 in Turku, Finland) is a saxophonist who specializes in the soprano saxophone. Life and career Harri studied saxophone with Harry Mann, Leo Wright and Steve Lacy. He also studied photography and film at t ...

: soprano saxophone * Volker Schlott: alto saxophone *

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while ...

, soprano saxophone * Thomas Klemm:

* Jörg Huke: Thomas Wiedermann:

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

: drums

References

{{Authority control 1999 live albums Cecil Taylor live albums FMP Records live albums