Time: 3–5pm

Location: Fayerweather 513

We are pleased to welcome Michelle Yom (CUNY) for a presentation on Cecil Taylor’s solo music.

From Michelle:

My ongoing work on Cecil Taylor’s practice thus far involves asking whether movement between areas within a musical subject can itself become the subject of study.  Three aspects of my engaging with Taylor’s practice are tracked: listening for understanding which moves through phases marked by periods of transcriptions, reading Taylor’s writing on improvisation, and reconsidering the residues of findings from my past analytical endeavors.  I discuss the cryptic blues tonality in Tree of Life, the surplus of a beat as motioning agent, and ‘stiff bodied fingers’ (clusters).  Helpful phrases like ‘root of rhythm is central unit of change’ (Taylor, 1966) and ‘a-logical logic of the second time’ (Chandler, 2018) are used for functional comparison; for finding by demonstrating that the uneven movement in listening, reading, and writing about Taylor’s music, like Taylor’s music, is itself an improvisation.

Suggested reading: