Cecil Taylor Unit
Roberts Hall, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA
February 8, 1969

Cecil Taylor p
Jimmy Lyons as
Sam Rivers ts,ss,fl
Andrew Cyrille d

Radio broadcast > ? > cassette > CD > Plextor PX-708A extraction (EAC v0.95 prebeta 5) > tracking (CD Wave) > sector boundary verification (shntool v2.0.3) > .flac encoding (flac v1.1.0)

EAC and FLAC encoding by Jack Warner (jackmw1ATsbcglobalDOTnet)

Disc 1 (1 track) [68:24]
1 unknown title [68:24] (minor glitches 48:07, 48:50)

Disc 2 (1 track) [31:24]
1 unknown title [31:24] (Minor glitches at 27:20 and 28:42)

Disc 3 (1 track) [59:41]
1 unknown title [59:41]
---------------------------------------------------------------
From http://www.velocity.net/%7Ebb10k/RIVERS.disc.html#69.02.08

Cecil Taylor Unit: [Unissued / Broadcast Tape]
Physical Item RGA 2835 B3 - 1 digital sound cassette (polyester)Tape]
Recording Laboratory, William L. Ewell, Jr. Collection (Library of Congress)

February 8, 1969, 8:00pm
Roberts Hall
Grinnell College
Grinnell, IA
unknown title [68:24] (minor glitch at 48:07, another-- or possible split track, at 48:50)
unknown title [31:23] (Minor glitches at 27:20 and 28:42)
unknown title [59:41]

[Total time 159:28]
Cecil Taylor (piano)
Jimmy Lyons (alto saxophone)
Sam Rivers (tenor and soprano saxophone, flute)
Andrew Cyrille (drums)

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"I received photo copies of the articles from the student newspaper The Scarlet and Black, describing Cecil Taylor's performance at Grinnell. Apparently, it was quite controversial (SURPRISE!!!)..."
--Andrew Galloway correspondence 02.11.28, Cecil Taylor Research List.

Grinnell College Scarlet and Black, Vol. LXXVI / Friday, February 7, 1969

Cecil Taylor Previewed
Uncompromising Artist Presents New Jazz, By Gary Giddins:

Cecil Taylor, pianist, composer, poet, and all-around musical guru for the jazz advance guard, will be on campus February 6, 7, 8. Leonard Feather has written of him, "The freedom, complexity, harmonic innovation and emotional brilliance of Taylor's playing have established him as one of the truly original minds in American music... Taylor's fast and intricately structured lines, almost percussive in their intensity, have had a stirring effect on the new horn techniques of the 60's... A lack of acceptance by some musicians and critics and pitifully infrequent opportunities to record, have kept Taylor's reputation and following limited to a small but devoted group of admirers.

That's not the half of it. Taylor has been screwed royally by club owners who were more interested in selling drinks then providing a free rein for artistic expression. Record companies have used him for a tax loss and don't bother to distribute. In this, Taylor is not unique. On the contrary, there are very few jazz musicians who have not suffered under a similar strain of capitalism. The new jazz is the bastard child of American music; it can't make it on a popular music level and it is not accepted by the classical elitists. Taylor, however, is an uncompromising artist who puts his craft first and refuses to kiss the asses of the money grabbing critics and hucksuckers who control the (gasp) "music business." Unfortunately, the payoff at times was one major gig a year supplemented by working at Macy's in the afternoons.

And now-- twelve years after his first major date in New York-- the critics and the public who criticized him as being a charlatan and anti-jazz are coming around. Cecil Taylor is a virtuoso pianist who unlike many of his imitators-- some of whom are better known than he-- can express on the keys what's happening in his head. And that's what jazz is about-- expression and communication. This doesn't mean that he is any more accepted by the public. Last August, he despaired as to whether he would ever record again. Those who have heard him, know that if in a hundred years some historian asks whether people in the 20th century could communicate, Cecil and some other musicians like him will serve as one of the new affirmative answers.

Previously our ideas of time and space have been negated in favor of a collective sound emanating from individual musicians surrendering their individuality to a group feeling. This music is not intended for background music; it is a total music.

During their stay here, the Cecil Taylor Unit will be available to the entire campus for discussion, etc. Thursday at 4:00 p.m. there will be a lecture-discussion. Friday at 8:00 p.m. there will be a drum workshop and at 10 p.m. a poetry reading by Taylor. All of these events will be in the South Lounge. The concert is in Roberts, Saturday night at 8:00 p.m.

Open up your mind and give them some of your time. They're worth listening to.


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Grinnell College Scarlet and Black, Vol. ????? / Friday, February 14, 1969

Controversial Concert Defended
By Molly McGuire:

A new breed of music was introduced to Grinnell last weekend in the form of the Cecil Taylor Unit, an avante-guard jazz quartet. If nothing else, the concert became a topic of controversy on campus as the music was foreign and incomprehensible to the ears of most of the audience. Arguments raged over the quality or value of the music itself as well as the advisability of bringing this type of music to Grinnell.

Comments ranged from the facetious Bandstand favorite, "Oh, it didn't have a very good beat and I couldn't dance to it," to the popular, "It stunk!" Those who liked it seemed overpowered by it-- they were completely carried away emotionally: "I was intoxicated by it," was one of the more extreme comments on the positive side.

Generally, however, there seemed to be unfavorable response from the campus. On this note, the S&B talked to Garry Giddins and Lee Shamberg of the Social Co-ordinating Committee to let them explain their reasons for bringing in Cecil Taylor, and also to let them comment on the student reaction.

Their reason for presenting a concert of this type was two-fold. First, Giddins felt that "any controversy started in this conservative melange of apathy and lethargy would be beneficial." Shamberg added, "The concert was a result of a continuous attempt to make the concerts program an organic part of the education process. Education involves a challenge to one's standards and preconceptions."

Secondly, they wanted to expose students to music they may never listen to on their own, or even realize existed. "The importance of the concert," stressed giddins, "was that the students got a chance to hear this music, not whether they liked it or disliked it. One of my hopes in bringing in Taylor was that people would be moved to investigate the music more fully on their own."

Those criticizing the quality of the music itself were severely chided by giddins and Shamberg. They argued that to criticize from a position of total ignorance is "indefensible." Instead of judging the music by the standards of the familiar Western music, they stressed that one must realize that Taylor is working in a different medium, that of an Afro-American culture. giddins stressed, "Whatever similarities there are between Taylor and Mozart are outweighed by similarities between Taylor and Ellington."

giddins was particularly disturbed by the fact that so much of the audience left before and during intermission. He said that if they would have stayed longer they very possibly would have ended up enjoying it (which is what did happen in several cases.) He said that Taylor wasn't playing for those who left, but for those who stayed long enough to enjoy listening to the music as much as he did playing it.

{Primary Source: 3CD-R; info via Library of Congress Database; Andrew Galloway correspondence 02.11.28}

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