Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor (born March 15, 1930, in New York City) is an American pianist and poet now generally acknowledged to be one of the great innovative sources of free jazz (along with the better known Ornette Coleman).

Sourced

• I don't expect people who listen to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to come hear me. I accept that reality.
  • Source: http://www.bluesforpeace.com/names.htm

• Sometimes when it goes really well, you wonder, "who's that at the piano?"
  • Soure: http://www.furious.com/perfect/ceciltaylor.html

Quotations about Cecil Taylor

• Who's that motherfucker? He can't play shit!
  • Miles Davis

• The most formidable pianism these ears have heard: This is the great divide of American piano playing.
  • Glenn Gould

• That man is capable of playing ten different notes with ten different fingers, ten different dynamics, ten different attacks and ten different tempi. There is no musician I've ever met, including Igor Stravinsky and Pierre Boulez, who come anywhere near having the abilities that Cecil Taylor has.
  • Buell Neidlinger