The 70th Annual Downbeat Critics Poll is out now, highlighting several albums and artists repped from May 2021-April 2022 at Lydia Liebman Promotions. See the full list below! Rising Star Large Ensemble 1. Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band Rising Star Soprano Sax 1. Roxy Coss Jazz Artist of the Year 17. Dave Liebman Jazz Album … Read More
New York City Jazz Record, March 2022 Review by Anna Steegmann – Adi Meyerson – I Want To Sing My Heart Out In Praise of Life – Page 17 Review by Mark Keresman – Roxy Coss – Disparate Parts – Page 18 Review by Ken Dryden – Deanna Witkowski – Force of Nature – Page … Read More
by Lance Liddle, Bebop Spoken Here “The album’s full title – The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert at The Town Hall NYC November 4, 1973 – marks the release of all the material recorded at the New York Town Hall concert almost fifty years ago. In the pre-digital age it wasn’t viable to market a … Read More
by John Fordham, The Guardian “Cecil Taylor, the technically awesome, stylistically and temperamentally uncategorisable African American piano virtuoso, died in 2018. Four years later, much of a previously lost November 1973 concert at New York City’s town hall (originally sidelined because one track runs to 88 minutes) has emerged..” Read the full article here.
by Michael J. West, JazzTimes “..Spring of Two Blue-J’s, one of the great concert triumphs of free-jazz pianist Cecil Taylor’s career, is just the shorter second set from a two-set night? Perhaps it’s not the world-reshaping news that the recent spate of new Coltrane releases has been, but it’s big, and the newly released full … Read More
by Alan Scherstuhl, The New York Times “Recorded at the Town Hall in New York on Nov. 4, 1973, the music gushes as if it were an uncapped fireplug. Previously unreleased, the relentless 88-minute track ‘Autumn/Parade’ catches the inexhaustible Cecil Taylor Unit in the grip of one revelation after another, playing free jazz, a style … Read More
by Martin Johnson, The Wall Street Journal “Cecil Taylor (1929-2018) is the most influential jazz pianist of the late 20th century. Some of today’s leading keyboard masters, including Kris Davis, Vijay Iyer, Matthew Shipp and Craig Taborn, cite him as a cornerstone influence. Yet some of the major early, evolutionary chapters of Taylor’s unique style—which … Read More
by Andy Hamilton, Jazz Journal The 1973 concert that marked the pianist’s return to the stage is issued in full for the first time, giving first exposure to the unissued first half “This concert certainly is legendary.” Read the complete review here.
by Michael Ullman, The Arts Fuse “In his notes to 1966’s Conquistador, Taylor proclaimed: “When you play with authority, then that’s what the music is about, like ooooh baby, and sing it.” Taylor plays with authority on The Complete Legendary, Live Return Concert — and, at times, even songfully.” Read the complete review here.
by James Hale, Sound Stage Experience “While the ’60s had been relatively good years for free-jazz pioneers—such as saxophonists John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and pianist Cecil Taylor—musicians like these who shunned any concessions to commercialism were looking for broader avenues of creative expression. Coltrane was actively searching for venues beyond smoky clubs and ways … Read More
