1986 · Album
Amewa: Live at Sweet Basil
Recorded February 8, 1986 · Sound Hills · Venue: Sweet Basil, New York City
Solo in the Dark: Cecil Taylor Alone
Taylor alone at the keyboard, no safety net, just the piano and whatever it demanded of him.
On February 8, 1986, Cecil Taylor sat down at Sweet Basil in New York City and played solo — nothing else, no one else. Amewa (1986) captures two sections of that night, each one a continuous block of music, no breaks, no reset. Taylor had spent decades in bands and ensembles, but by this point he was working solo more often, and the piano under his hands became less an instrument and more a conversation partner he was interrogating.
What you hear is not bebop. It is not stride. It is Taylor thinking in real time, his fingers moving across the keys in clusters and runs that don't follow standard jazz grammar. He builds intensity gradually — single notes at first, then chords, then passages where both hands are moving in different directions at once. There is no chorus to return to, no form to anchor the listener. Instead, there is only accumulation and release, passages of delicate picking interrupted by sudden storms of sound. The piano itself sounds slightly out of tune, which adds to the sense of urgency and instability.
This was not Taylor's first solo recording, but Amewa matters because it shows him fully committed to improvisation without structure — no standards, no heads, no rhythm section to guide or constrain him. For listeners coming to Taylor for the first time, this is probably not the place to start; try Unit Structures (1966) instead. But for anyone interested in what happens when a major creative mind is given nothing but time and an instrument, Amewa is essential.
Who's playing
Cecil Taylorpiano
Where next?
More by Cecil Taylor
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