DVDs with the Elders: Cecil Taylor
This is a shot of Cecil Taylor reading poetry saturated with Egyptian imagery in the 2004 Hal Leonard Corporation documentary Cecil Taylor: Jazz Master Class Series From NYU. Even rasx() was expecting Cecil Taylor to impart extensive technical details in a show with “master class” in the title. But what happened was that a few young cats played for Cecil—and Cecil played his stuff too, along with his reading of poetry.
The partially apologetic and partially scolding introduction of Cecil Taylor by Gary Giddins was extremely important in not only properly introducing me to Cecil Taylor but this also placed Cecil in historical context. Of course, I did not reject Cecil Taylor reading poetry instead of lecturing about music (like Dizzie Gillespie does)! But I can see how serious music enthusiasts would be seriously annoyed.
Cecil Taylor may seem to come from another planet—another galaxy—to both Black and white people but to me he is a type of legendary elder—a very successful variation of Black American genius that towers over the countless tragedies. I can count a handful of stories of that weird uncle or that queer aunt in my family or in the family of childhood friends who ended up trapped and devoured by Jim-Crow-era racism. I always took in these stories knowing just how exquisite and developed their talent was but when it was juxtaposed against barbarian inquisitions into basic humanity it was just crippling and shattering.
All of us can find great sympathy for a dude like Galileo Galilei under house arrest by the Catholic Church—but, when the Jim Crow shit takes it a few steps further, now a chocolate rendition of Galileo is not even a frickin’ human being and is to be dismissed as a blabbering animal creature.
A great many Black geniuses are broken down, gelatinous masses of surrendering compromise in their old age (assuming they make it that far) so it was truly inspiring to see ol’ Cecil Taylor still on fire… One bit of Cecil Taylor trivia: during what I consider his exile into academic life as a music instructor in the “heartland” of America, Cecil Taylor failed over 70% of his students. What is maddening is to be accused of failing so many for things coming from hate when I am very, very certain that Cecil did this because he would never betray his true love beyond love…