Cecil Taylor, one of the greatest pianists of the avant garde, was taken advantage of before his death in 2018.
(Photo: Daniel Sheehan)Oct 8, 2024 12:37 PM
The Kyoto Prize is not as well-known as the Guggenheim fellowship, or the MacArthur grant, both of which pianist, composer and musical seeker Cecil Taylor received during his…
Albert Ayler
Nov 16, 2021 11:23 AM
In a restaurant-bar in Greenwich Village, tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler was ruminating on the disparity between renown and income. In his case, anyway. Covers of his albums are prominent in the windows of more and more jazz record stores; references to him are increasingly frequent in jazz magazines, here and abroad; a growing number of players are trying to sound like him.
“I’m a new star, according to a magazine in England,” Ayler said, “and I don’t even have fare to England. Record royalties? I never see any. Oh, maybe I’ll get $50…
