Cecil Taylor

USA, 1955–2018

American pianist and poet (1929-2018), a founder of free jazz. Trained on Ellington and Monk and steeped in Stravinsky and Bartok, he treated the piano as a set of tuned drums, building dense, percussive improvisations of extraordinary energy that redrew the limits of jazz.

MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Cecil Taylor and 2 artists Cecil Taylor influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Cecil Taylor?

• Duke Ellington — Ellington was Taylor's foundation: 'I never would have thought of playing the piano without thinking it out along Ellington's lines, and that's the base.'
• Thelonious Monk — Monk's angular, dissonant phrasing and percussive attack are audible throughout Taylor's playing and were named by early critics as one of its components.
• Igor Stravinsky — At the conservatory Taylor immersed himself in 20th-century composers, Stravinsky above all, whose rhythmic violence and dense harmony he carried into jazz.

Which artists did Cecil Taylor influence?

• Sergey Kuryokhin — Taylor was the decisive influence on Kuryokhin's piano: he said he reached a dead end after working through most of Taylor's music, which pushed him to find a different relationship between a musician and the instrument.
• The Velvet Underground — Reed named his college radio show 'Excursions On A Wobbly Rail' after a Cecil Taylor piece and built it around free jazz years before the Velvets.