Blue Note Classics Reissues Cecil Taylor’s ‘Unit Structures’

1966 avant-garde essential gets first all-analog reissue

For Cecil Taylor, the word “jazz” didn’t represent the music’s rich historical and geographical lineage. The further he progressed, the more he distanced himself from such strict definition. And considering his music, why wouldn’t he?

A classically-trained pianist who worshipped Ellington but also studied and admired Stockhausen and Xenakis, it took almost a decade before Taylor’s brilliance fully revealed itself in the studio. Yet even on his debut album, the 1956 trio session Jazz Advance, his jagged, percussive sound stood out from the more rigidly chordal hard bop dominant at the time. He was already unstoppable: once he started playing, he was off. For example, listen to his solo rendition of Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To.” Taylor starts with the recognizable original melody, then does his abstract thing before returning to another part of the core composition and repeating the cycle. He sustains this momentum for nine minutes, and every second astounds. No one played like that in 1956. No one.

Over the next few years, he released a few more albums, including one for Contemporary (1958’s Looking Ahead!) where he pairs with Earl Griffith's vibraphone like oil and water, and one main release for Candid (1961’s The World Of Cecil Taylor) where bassist Buell Neidlinger and drummer Denis Charles keep things grounded as Taylor, and occasionally Archie Shepp, exhibit their signature disruptive energies. He also played with John Coltrane on 1958’s Hard Driving Jazz (also known as Stereo Drive or Coltrane Time) and on Gil Evans’ Into The Hot.

Cecil Taylor hadn’t released an album since 1962 when he signed to Blue Note and recorded Unit Structures in May 1966. By this time, Blue Note had already released plenty of avant-garde jazz records—surely at a loss, as they sold the label to Liberty in 1965—but even then, Unit Structures was completely radical. Taylor leads a septet, with Eddie Gale Stevens Jr. (trumpet), Ken McIntyre (alto sax, oboe, bass clarinet), and Henry Grimes (second bass) added to the quartet of Taylor, Jimmy Lyons (alto sax), Alan Silva (bass), and Andrew Cyrille (drums). There’s a momentous, almost revolutionary spirit running through Unit Structures, extending to Reid Miles’ especially striking cover art and Taylor’s own liner notes on the back, which blend his poetry with explanations of the music and his philosophy behind it.

Even those used to decoding fragmented writings might struggle with Taylor’s notes, and for that matter, his music. But essentially, he viewed the four compositions on Unit Structures in a deeply architectural manner. Set up the right circumstances, the framework, and everything will naturally, inevitably, fall into place and create an immersive, visceral result. “The player advances to the area, an unknown totality, made whole through self-analysis (improvisation), the conscious manipulation of known material; each piece is choice; architecture, particular in grain, the specifics question-layers are disposed-deposits arrangements, group activity establishing the ‘Plain.’”

Unfamiliar ears may simply interpret Unit Structures as free jazz. There’s improvisation, of course, but it’s actually composed, albeit not in any usual “jazz” format (nor in line with other American avant-garde/free jazz of the 60s). Cecil Taylor and his unit have a unique precision, too exacting for this music to be completely free despite its flowing nature. The first piece, “Steps,” opens with Taylor’s usual dense clusters of piano notes before everyone else joins, occupying that fascinating gray area between tonal and atonal. Towards the end, there’s a couple minutes of fiery interplay between Taylor and Cyrille, the former’s hands flying across the keyboard as the latter keeps steady pace without an easily identifiable rhythmic structure.

“Enter, Evening (Soft Line Structure)” lives up to its title, its dynamic and textural consistency making it the easiest piece. Lyons and McIntyre travel close together, drifting closer then suddenly away from Stevens before the former two themselves move apart. Halfway through, it very temporarily simmers down to a nocturnal ambience, like a flurry of crickets buzzing about. “Unit Structure / As Of A Now / Section” ramps up and cools down so frequently that it’s often unclear how and where one point transitioned into the next, yet it somehow all makes sense. This was Cecil Taylor’s genius: right when you’ve found something to grasp onto, he throws a curveball. After several rounds of this, you begin to understand his approach. The sparser closing track, “Tales (8 Whisps),” places Taylor’s piano more upfront. He’s equally as interesting alone as he is within the bigger organized chaos. Unit Structures is complex, but all its intricacies make it compulsively listenable.

The same year, Cecil Taylor recorded one more album for Blue Note, Conquistador!, comprised of two side-long pieces that find his style perhaps even more fully formed. Afterwards, he recorded the occasional studio session though mostly performed live in various configurations, especially in Europe. Six months after Unit Structures and five after recording Conquistador!, his quartet played in Paris; recorded and later released as Student Studies (and reissued by ORG Music a few years ago as The Great Paris Concert), it’s more difficult than the Blue Note recordings.

Taylor died in 2018 at age 89, seemingly respected by academics and institutions more than the general public. Sure, you can’t listen to his music in the background of a dinner party, or during your city commute, but he’s one of the top jazz innovators and Unit Structures is essential listening. Not “essential listening if you can handle it,” rather a necessary challenge to take on. It gets better every time you play it; despite a lack of any repetition, you might even begin to remember some of these passages. (And if you don’t get the compositional complexities, you’re not alone: Xenakis once said that it’d take him six months to figure out a 30-minute Cecil Taylor piece.)

Many audiophiles complain that Rudy Van Gelder didn’t record piano very well; while I think that narrative is exaggerated, Cecil Taylor sounds underwater here. Otherwise, this new Blue Note Classics reissue, cut from the master tapes by Kevin Gray, is perfect. The highs are clear and open, Van Gelder’s soundstage dry but logically spread out, and the 180g Optimal pressing flat and quiet. I haven’t heard the original pressing, but since Van Gelder had to roll off the bass and compress these albums to play on cheap turntables, I assume this is the best version yet. (This is the first all-analog Unit Structures pressing since at least the 1980s.) Can we get a Conquistador! Tone Poet reissue now?