Cecil Taylor Unit
December 17, 1980
Blues Alley
Washington, DC
Made from the master cassettes
flac

total time 86:58

1
2
3

Cecil Taylor - piano
Jimmy Lyons - alto saxophone
William Parker - bass
Rashid Bakr - drums

from "DC" our anonymous donor:
Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Lyons, William Parker, and Rashid Bakr live at Blues Alley, Washington DC, December 17, 1980: Recorded from front row of tables facing piano, using a Sony TC-150 mono cassette recorder with ALC on a conventional bias TDK AD-C90 cassette. Made from the master cassette.

The Unit performed a single piece that was longer than 80 minutes. The torrent is therefore broken down into three seamless segments for burning to CDR, including a very brief (less than 20 seconds) interim segment that can be put at the end of the first CDR and/or the beginning of the second CDR. The transition points were placed at brief moments of silence during a particular call and response portion of the performance. If played from a hard drive, the segments will play seamlessly.

During the performance, Taylor rocked back and forth on the piano bench. At one point he rocked back so hard that he lost his balance and fell completely head over heels backwards off the bench and onto the floor. Lyons, in mid-solo, turned his head slightly, looked over with half-shut eyes until he saw Taylor get back up, and then continued on with his solo, having not missed a note.