TAYLOR, Cecil

A reclusive musician who rarely performs and whose few available recordings are reportedly not always authoritative, Taylor is one of those rare artists whose reputation gains from personal absence. Active as a Jazz pianist, poet, composer, and bandleader since the late fifties, Taylor derived compositional ideas from European Impressionism, relying more on tone and texture than rhythm and melody. His group improvisations often featured highly energetic articulations, jagged starts and stops, abrupt...