***"Black Editions Archives presents Live at the KiMo Theater Albuquerque 1979, a major new archival work by the late Cecil Taylor (1929-2018). Pianist, composer and bandleader Cecil Taylor's capacious and audacious originality reshaped twentieth-century music. In an astounding act of artistic forbearance spanning sixty years of performing and recording, Taylor didn't win over so much as wear down the jazz establishment through the force and brilliant execution of his ideas. His methodologies and language, if studied at all, remain unassimilated by the twenty-first century jazz mainstream and its institutions. Lincoln Center turned the house lights on during Taylor's first performance there (2007), a stark reminder that in spite of Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships and increased respect among some of his tradition-minded peers, the shock of his music had not diminished and he was still an outlier, if not an outlaw, presence. Live at the KiMo Theater Albuquerque 1979 captures Taylor on November 20, 1979, during a rare tour of the American West with a then newly reconstituted quintet formation of his Unit. An ensemble in regular flux from the mid-1970s onward, only two members of Taylor's 1978 Unit, violinist Ramsey Ameen (1945-2019) and alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons (1931-1986) — the bel canto voice of every Cecil Taylor band since 1961 —made the trip with Taylor to Albuquerque. Re-entering the fold on bass and cello after a decade-long absence was prime mover extraordinaire Alan Silva (1939-), with drummer Jerome Cooper (1946-2015) making his Cecil Taylor Unit performance debut. Each historical incarnation...
LP $50.00
10/16/2026