two weeks ago I had the pleasure to hear the Taylor-Oxley Duo at the Ulrichsberg festival. It was a great concert in a totally packed concert hall. Some days later I heard that Cecil canceled all following gigs and this was probably his last performance due to cancer. Nice to hear that the Dixon-Taylor reunion took place though the high expectations didn´t come true. What about his 'official' website: www.soundzimpossible.com/ceciltaylor/frame.html apparently doesn´t work any more (moved?) Andreas np: John Coltrane - At The Village Vanguard Again (Impulse!)
From: mwoodwor <mwoodwor@is2.dal.ca>
The biggest (and actually only) disapointment by far was the Cecil Taylor/Bill Dixon/Tony Oxley show. I primarily went to the festival to see this and was expecting it to be my number one show, hands down. Unfortunately, something just wasn't right on this night (started feeling a weird vibe when the show was 50 minutes late which is rare for Victoriaville). I'm a huge fan of Bill Dixon, but he just did not seem like he was willing to try and engage with Cecil and just kept breathing/softly blowing/making what I would call 'prolonged ambient trumpet fart sounds' without considering what was going on around him. Unfortunatley, it appeared that Cecil's attempts to communicate/make things happen with Bill, actually lessened his own playing, there was certainly no magic in the air.
By no means a bad show, and I suppose someone could say it was a "different" kind of Cecil Taylor gig, but judging from the lukewarm audience response at the end (and believe me everyone was very stoked for the show) I'm not the only one to walk away with this impression. One of the best parts of the show was the approximately 1 1/2 minute solo Cecil did at the very end, and the other good tidbits (where you really felt like something was starting to happen) were when just Cecil and Tony were playing. I think a Cecil/Tony Duo concert and then Bill Dixon solo concert (he did get some great sounds out of his trumpet) afterward would have been a much more enjoyable evening.
mike.
_________________________________________________________________ Mit MSN Fotos können Sie problemlos Ihre Fotos ausdrucken und anderen Benutzern zur Verfügung stellen: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx