At the Center of the Universe: Cecil Taylor at The Take 3 (A Mem
Cecil Taylor at The Take 3 (a '60s Memoir)
In the summer of 1962, Cecil lands a three-month, four-night-a-week gig at The Take 3 coffee house on Bleecker Street. A large nondescript room with a stage at the back end and several dozen tables of various shapes and sizes, The Take 3 is right next door to the glittering Bitter End where Woody Allen had performed just weeks before. (Allen was second on the bill and Iād thrown him a quick couple of lines in the Village Voice column ā something about how this new comic exploited his appearance to good advantage.)
For Cecil, 33 now, The Take 3 experience will be important for the opportunity its extraordinary duration affords him to develop new ideas and achieve deeper levels of interaction with the two musicians he brings with him, Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone, and Sunny Murray, drums. (The trio will be joined on occasion by either Buell Neidlinger or Henry Grimes on bass, but most of the time thereās no bass player.)
For me, 23, and never happier than when Iām in a jazz club and in the company of musicians I admire, itās a chance to hang in my element on a semi-regular basis. But itās something else as well. This is 1962. An increasing number of us live with the conviction that a seismic change in human consciousness is both possible and imminent. We also share a belief that the New Jazz, in its break with established forms and procedures, and with its resurrection of ancient black methodologies, is showing the way. āMan,ā the bassist Alan Silva (coming off an hour-long, 13-piece collective improvisation one night at another venue) can say to me, āin ten years we wonāt even need traffic lights weāre gonna be so spiritually tuned to one another.ā
At The Take 3, Iāll feel myself to be at the very center of the universe.
I mention Cecilās engagement in the column a few days before he opens and maybe six people a night show up in the first week. The following week, ignoring criticism that Iām functioning as Cecilās unofficial publicist, I write what amounts to a paean to him. I also discuss a simultaneous Monk date at the Five Spot. (Monk, of course, is one of Cecilās principal influences.) The Voice titles this column āThe Monk and the Taylorā and gives it a banner front page headline. The next night I arrive at The Take 3 and see that the proprietors have hung an enormous sign over the entrance:
āCECIL TAYLOR! āSTARTS WHERE MONK LEAVES OFF!ā ā VILLAGE VOICEā
Not exactly the way I had put it, but so what? The column and the sign serve their purpose. From this point on the room is usually filled to capacity.
Among the musicians who come on a night that Iām there (and who would have come without the hype) are John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. When the last set ends, they sit at a table with Cecil, Anne (my girlfriend then) and me, and a love fest breaks out. John says to Cecil that heās āawestruckā by him, that heās ānever heard three people make so much music.ā Eric calls Cecil āthe spaceman ā the astronaut!ā After Cecil tells Eric that Eric is āabout to become great,ā I raise my hand and say, āSo, what about me?ā Everybody laughs except Eric. I can see him thinking: Wait a minute. Should I knowā¦? Does Bob play an instrument?
John and Cecil had recorded together in 1958 and a word on the album they made, and their musical relationship in general, is in order here. The album, Hard Driving Jazz, was originally a Cecil date and later reissued under Coltraneās name as Coltrane Time. It was certainly an interesting document but it turned out to be less than terrific.
Tom Wilson, an early champion of Cecilās and the producer of his first record, Jazz Advance, produced this one as well. He also chose the sidemen, all of whom ā trumpeter Kenny Dorham, bassist Chuck Israels, drummer Louis Hayes and tenor saxophonist Coltrane ā were serious beboppers and, with the exception of Coltrane, very much set in their ways.
Tom believed that he was putting something seminal together, something that would foreshadow where, following Cecilās lead, bebop would go from here. But surrounding Cecil with a group composed largely of obdurate beboppers was counterproductive to say the least. While Coltrane acquitted himself decently, Dorham (a splendid bebop trumpet player) was incensed by Cecilās āeccentricā comping and he made no effort to conceal his feelings. For their parts, Israels and Hayes could only struggle with the rhythmic challenges Cecil posed.
But the album would still have failed to predict bebopās future even if these men had been more flexible. Although it wasnāt entirely clear at the time, Cecil was in the process of creating a discrete system of his own; if anything, he was shedding bebop. (It would be Coltrane whoād deliver bebop to its outer limits.) Given this circumstance, what a Cecil Taylor record needed was musicians inclined and prepared to take his journey with him. Cecil had been opposed to Dorhamās inclusion on the date ā heād wanted Ted Curson, a younger trumpet player who was very much in sync with him. And he hadnāt been so sure about using Coltrane either. That John would be more capable than the others of taking Cecil on wasnāt necessarily enough.
(Jimmy Lyons, whom he didnāt encounter until 1960, became Cecilās most congenial supporting player. Jimmy survived for years on odd jobs in order to be available if Cecil had work, and when Jimmy needed a new saxophone Cecil rewarded his loyalty by buying him one. āIt had to be a Selmer, so thatās what he got,ā Cecil told me. When Jimmy died in 1986, it was months before Cecil could bring himself to go near a piano again.)
Probably the closest thing to a successful number from the Hard Driving Jazz recording sessions, Mel TormĆ©ās āChristmas Songā ā āFor the NoĆ«l market,ā Cecil said ā was left out of the album. (No, I never learned why.)
By 1962, of course, Coltrane was all but possessed by the Free Jazz players. He was both their patron ā he gave them money and employed many of them in his bands ā and their student. āHe loved us,ā Archie Shepp would say. But as far as Cecilās approach was concerned, there was only so much that John could use. āThatās too complicated,ā he remarked about it once, and he derived a lot more from Archie, Eric, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, among others.
But Coltrane was always prepared to honor Cecil. Iām thinking of a night at Birdland a year or so later. John is about to go on as Cecil and a small group of us come in. We walk past the bar where Pee Wee Marquette, the clubās midget and famously nasty emcee, is saying to the bartender ā and just loud enough for us to hear ā āHow much more of this Greenwich Village jazz am I supposed to take?ā John sees Cecil and says something to McCoy Tyner whoās already playing an intro. Tyner abruptly quits the number heās started and they open the set instead with āOut of This World.ā
Another musician who comes to The Take 3 doesnāt stay very long.
Itās between sets and the band is backstage when I hear something going on at the door. I turn to look and see Coleman Hawkins standing there. Coleman Hawkins! The āBeanā himself!
I canāt make out what Hawkins is saying, but I hear the girl who collects the admission charge say: āEverybody pays a dollar, Sir.ā
I see whatās happening and I want to rise from my chair and drop a dollar onto the girlās table, but I canāt do anything. Iām frozen. Coleman Hawkins!
And itās over too fast. Hawkins glares at the girl, then turns and splits.
āMaybe āBeanā didnāt have a bean,ā Cecil says when I tell him about it.
So, what about me?
On the same night as Hawkinsās abortive visit, Cecil and I leave The Take 3 together. In the years ahead Iāll grow up a little and how I relate to Cecil, who I met in 1956 and who quickly assumed the role of an older brother, will change. But as Iāve made evident elsewhere, in this period of my life Iām not someone youād describe as perfectly centered and no serious time spent in Cecilās company can pass for me without a certain issue erupting. I refer to my unrealized and maybe never to be realized, creative writing aspirations and to the envy and resentment that will unfailingly be triggered in me at one point or another. Cecil is a genuine artist. The real thing. Iām chronically āblockedā and without any clear sense of what I want to say or how to proceed. (If a part of me is counting on osmosis with him, it isnāt working.) In Cecilās words, spoken without malice ā to be straightforward about such matters, at whatever the cost, is central to the stance heās taken in the world ā Iām a āperson of artistic persuasion.ā Itās a phrase that heās used more than once and it embarrasses and infuriates me. But anything that makes me too conscious of the contrasts between us can set me off. When that happens, my pattern is to become aggrieved and petulant and then, in a paroxysm of indignation and vainglorious self-assertion, to withdraw from him, sometimes for months. In this particular instance, however, a separation at least is forestalled by Cecil in a way I could not have anticipated.
With the completion of an eveningās last set, Cecilās usually eager to see whatās going on in clubs that are still open. But on this night, a sultry night in late August, heās not feeling well and he wants to go home. I need to get home as well ā to finish an overdue Blue Note liner. āYouāre killing me, Robert,ā Frank Wolff had said to me earlier on the phone. āFrank,ā I told him, āIām suicidal myself. This is the fourth Jimmy Smith album youāve assigned me. Didnāt you get that I had nothing to say about him the first time? Why doesnāt Joe Goldberg have to do these?ā
I plan to accompany Cecil as far as Second Avenue.
āWhatās the matter with you?ā I say once weāre outside. āYou donāt have the clap again? I warned you not to sit on public piano stools.ā
Cecil, whoās looking a little gray, grimaces. āUlcer attack,ā he says. āI have something to take at the apartment.ā
The stomach ulcer has been a persistent concern for Cecil (heās convinced it will soon become something fatal) and waiting for traffic to pass on the corner of LaGuardia Place, Iām about to ask him if heās seen his doctor recently when this guy Iād noticed standing outside The Take 3 approaches us. āExcuse me, Mr. Taylor,ā he says ā and to me, āExcuse me, Sir.ā Heās black and around my age.
āMr. Taylor,ā he says, āI just wanted to tell you how amazing I think you are and how much I love your music. No one can play the piano like you do.ā
Cecil smiles. āThank you,ā he says.
āI wish I could be a musician,ā the guy goes on. āIāve taken lessons, but Iām no good at it. I just donāt have the aptitude for it, I guess.ā
Cecil looks at him and says gently, āThen be a good listener.ā
Not a bad answer, I think, and Iām instantly rankled by it.
āWhat empty shit,ā I say after the guy ā nodding earnestly, then smiling broadly and vigorously shaking my hand as well as Cecilās ā backs off. āāBe a good listener.ā Was that the best you could do?ā
āI donāt know what you mean,ā Cecil says as we resume walking. I see that his countenance has brightened considerably. Cecil responds well to adulation.
āI mean thatās not what he wanted to hear,ā I say.
āHe seemed satisfied to me, Bob,ā Cecil says. āBut then you may be right. Since when do I give people what they want to hear?ā
āHe wanted you to tell him the secret,ā I say. āWhen he digests what you said heās going to sink into a profound depression.ā
Cecil gives me a sidelong glance. āAre you talking about him, Bob? Youāre not starting some shit here, are you?ā
I ignore this. Iām remembering something Iād all but buried, but which is suddenly of great importance to me, and I say: āCome to think of it, since when do you really give much of anything, even when you say you will?ā
Cecil stares at me. He obviously has no idea what Iām talking about.
āCecil,ā I say. āWhat the fuck happened to āBobtā?ā
āWhat the fuck happened to who?ā He says.
āTo āBobtā, I say. āShit, man. Not āwhoā. What! āBobtā!ā
āBob,ā he says laughing at me. āListen to you. Are youāre having a fit of some sort? Should I take you to an emergency room?ā
āYou said you were composing a tune for me and that you were calling it āBobt,āā I say. āThat was a year ago. Iāve waited long enough, donāt you think? Where is it? I want it.ā
āYou want it?ā Cecil says. āHave you collapsed into an infantile state, man? Do I need to remind you of the vicissitudes of the creative process?ā
āIn other words, you never wrote it,ā I say.
āāIn other words, please be kindā,ā Cecil sings. ā āIn other wordsā¦āā
āYou were bullshitting me,ā I say. āWill you cut the crap and give me a straightā¦ā
āIt was absorbed by something else.ā Cecil nods to himself after he hears what he said. Heād bought a moment with the musical interlude and heās pleased with the answer he came up with.
āāAbsorbed by something elseā?ā I say. āThatās beautiful. Well, you know what, Cecil? Iām going to write a poem for you ā a poem Iām going to finish ā and Iām going to call itā¦ā
āāThe Magnificent Oneā?ā He says. āāThe Immortalā¦ā?ā
āIām going to call it āThe Insufferable Self-Centered Prickā,ā I say.
āBob,ā he says, his hand on his chest, āAre you saying that Iām self-centered? Me? The amazing Cecil?ā
āIāll tell you what Iām saying,ā I say. āI donāt need this shit ā thatās what Iām saying. The one thing I do get back from knowing and touting the āamazing Cecilā is reflected glory, and it definitely has some practical benefits ā I can point to two occasions when itās actually gotten me laid. [Cecil finds this statement hilarious.] But is it worth the indignities I have to suffer? Will it make me immortal, too? No, you can shove reflected glory, man. I donāt have to settle for it anyway. Iām making some moves. Iām going to be my own Cecil Taylor.ā
Cecil feigns a horrified expression āYouā¦youā¦ā he blusters. āYou would dare take my name, the name of Cecil?ā
I stifle a laugh. āAnd Iām not exactly beginning at zero eitherā¦ā
āListen,ā he says, āthereās something I havenāt toldā¦ā
āā¦Maybe it isnāt really āwritingā,ā I continue, ābutā¦ā
āā¦The column?ā He says. āYouāre talking about the column? I appreciate what youāve done with it but no, you know it isnāt āwritingā.ā
Ready, in the wake of this remark, to take permanent leave of him, to never even listen to a record of his again, I say: āI just conceded as much. But fuck you, Cecil. No oneās ever told me their three-year-old daughter could do it.ā
Cecil stops walking and grabs my shoulder. āRobert,ā he says, āI havenāt mentioned this.ā
āWhat?ā I snarl, pushing his hand off me.
āA while back,ā he says, āthat poem you wroteā¦the one you gave me ā¦ā
āThat poem?ā I say. āThat poem sucked. It was awful.ā
He shakes his head. āSomething about that poemā¦it made me want to write poems myself. I started writing poetry the next day.ā
āI didnāt know you were writing poetry,ā I say. āHow fucking dare you.ā
He laughs. āI havenāt been able to stop. Not since I read that poem. No oneās seen any of it yet. I guess Iāll have to show them to you now.ā
I take this in. Iām still only a āperson of artistic persuasionā ā at best Iām destined to be a footnote in his biography. But Iām also something more than Cecilās flack now. Iāve managed to have an impact in a way that really matters to me. āBobtā? Who needs āBobtā? I regard what Cecilās imparted as a gift beyond measure.
āIām glad to see that youāre feeling better,ā I say a moment later when we arrive at Second Avenue. āSo, Coleman Hawkins came to check you out. Too bad he didnāt want to pay for the privilege.ā
Cecil shrugs. āWe could have used his dollar,ā he says. Then he says: āIām thinking about going to Slugās. Come with me.ā
āSure. Yeah.ā I say.
If Frank Wolff dies, Iāll find a way to live with the guilt.
[Following a trip to Scandinavia in the fall of 1962, Cecil, Sunny and Jimmy played The Take 3 again in 1963. It was during the second engagement that Albert Ayler made an impromptu appearance. Since, at this point in time, I tend to recall both gigs as one, Iām reporting on the event here.]
Albert Ayler
On a night Iād have regretted missing, a heavy presence causes me to turn my head in the middle of a set and I see this dude with an odd patch of white on his goatee and wearing a green leather suit. Heās holding a gleaming tenor saxophone. (Sunny will tell me that he polishes it every day.) I know who he is. Sunny and Jimmy had both spoken about Albert Ayler, the ānew bitch on tenorā theyād met and played with in Copenhagen on the recent tour. Before they left Denmark, Cecil had invited him to āsay helloā when he returned to the States.
But Albert isnāt wasting time with formalities. The cap is already off his mouthpiece and heās edging his way between the tables toward the bandstand. Sunny says to Cecil, āAlbertās here,ā and though Cecil barely raises his head thatās enough for Albert to mount the stage.
I write this half a century after the fact, but the first sounds Albert makes remain as vivid and immediate to me as if Iād heard them only moments ago.
Itās his vibrato. The breadth, the amplitude, of his vibrato is astonishing. (It will redefine the scope of the tenor saxophone and Coltrane will admit to having dreams about trying to duplicate it.) If it results in chasing a portion of the room into the street, the rest of us are riveted by it. Coming from an apparent rhythm and blues matrix, and reminiscent of the shouters and honkers of the ā40s and ā50s, what Albert is playing ā with suddenly shifting meters and no regard for tonal centers ā isnāt a sequence of notes so much as an amalgam of sounds. Primal sounds. Ecstatic sounds. Achingly mournful sounds. Grotesque and funny sounds.
Albertās intention, heāll explain to me, is to reassert black musicās original function, to āconjure up holy spirits.ā I canāt vouch for his success in that regard, but I can say that for me what heās doing is almost equal in its emotional impact to the first time I heard Cecil.
And Cecil. When Albert begins to play, Cecil laughs and his posture changes noticeably. Heās recalibrating to accommodate Albert. Sunny and Jimmy respond in the same fashion. They embrace Albert and unite with him. Half an hour passes before the number he cut in on is completed.
Of the many gifted musicians who belonged to the New Thingās second wave, Albert, an astronaut and an archeologist all at once, was the monster. The full range of his unique vision wasnāt revealed the night he sat in with Cecil, of course. But later, in bands of his own and with the pre-Louis Armstrong-through-Ornette Coleman spectrum of material he would utilize, Albert created a fascinating body of innovative work. Many of us took for granted that heād be the next major force in the music.
In 1964, when Iād be living with āPretty,ā Albert came to the apartment several times to hang out and also to do an interview. The tape of that interview (and a tape of an interview with Betty Carter) was inside the Wollensak case when I was burglarized. I never got the chance to transcribe it.
Albert would die in 1970, apparently by his own hand. A year after that, in the process of moving to the West Village with Carolyn, I discovered a leather tie on the floor of the bedroom closet. It was caked in plaster dust, but I was able to make out the letters āAAā written in ink on the label. My first thought was, how the hell did this get here? Had Albert removed his tie while we talked and forgotten about it? Had āPrettyā found it and, for safekeeping, hung it in the closet where, forgotten by her as well, it had eventually been jostled from its hook? After a moment I realized that the circumstances behind the tieās appearance were probably not so innocent ā and I could smile about it now. When I met her, āPrettyā had already āballedā every living entry in the Encyclopedia of Jazz and cohabiting with me had in no way discouraged her from moving on to the supplementary volume. Why not Albert?
Speaking of girl singers, I should note that in the course of Cecilās run a couple of remarkable vocalists, Jeanne Lee and Sheila Jordan, work opposite him from time to time. Another performer who turns up (making his debut, as I remember it) is Tiny Tim. āWhat the fuck is this?ā two people at separate tables exclaim in unison when he launches into āTiptoe Through the Tulips.ā
I should also add that someone who doesnāt show is Ornette. Eventually Ornette and Cecil will be acknowledged as the dual progenitors of the New Music, but theyāve been competing for sole ownership of this distinction from the start and, declarations of mutual respect aside, they arenāt especially supportive of one another. Ornette, whoās the better known of the two, clearly wants to protect his advantage. A few days after the āMonk and Taylorā column Iām walking on 8th Street, head down against a driving rain, when my path is suddenly blocked. I look up and itās Ornette.
āYou must make a lot of money writing for that paper,ā he says and brushes past me.
So much for the parties at Ornetteās loft.
(Thereād been talk about Ornette and Cecil recording together since the late ā50s, but nothing ever materialized. Around 2003, preparations, including rehearsals, for an album by them were actually underway when Ornette decided not to go ahead with the project. āCecil,ā he said, was āplaying too much.ā)
Just days before the ā62 gig will come to its conclusion, and determined to savor every last moment, Iām seated at a table right near the stage. The band has been āexchanging energiesā for forty minutes. Each time the torrent of sound begins to ebb and you think, thatās it, theyāre spent, they canāt possibly have anything left, an apparently tossed-off phrase, a single note, reignites the process and the music builds to even greater levels of intensity than it had reached before. (Buell Neidlinger, whoās here tonight, isnāt going along at this point. Heās stopped playing and he looks to be exhausted ā or worse. Eyes closed, his glasses askew, his head is hanging over his bass at an alarmingly strange angle. Has he broken his neck?)
Iām facing straight ahead and totally absorbed in whatās taking place, when Jack Kerouac bounds onto the bandstand in front of me. Appearing to be in aā¦wellā¦beatified condition, he twice, and very slowly, makes a circle around the entire group. Then he walks between and around each of the individual players. Finally he bends down and slides under the piano where, lying on his back, he folds his arms across his chest. At the end of the piece (some twenty minutes later), he emerges from beneath the piano and extends his hand to Cecil.
āIām Jack Kerouac,ā he says, āand Iām the greatest writer in the world.ā A startled Cecil (who at first isnāt sure who this cat is and whoād apparently been unaware of his presence) recovers quickly. Accepting Kerouacās hand he says: āIām Cecil Taylor and Iām the greatest pianist in the world.ā
Me, Iām thinking, Jesus, this is too much ā itās way past too much. And if it occurs to me to say to them: āIām Robert Levin and Iām the greatest person of artistic persuasion in the world,ā thatās just a reflex. Iāve got, right now, no need to say anything ā certainly nothing bitter. No. Should reflected glory turn out to be the best kind Iāll get Iāll take it. Right now, my simple proximity to this is enough to make me feel like Iāll live forever.