1993 · Album
Double Holy House
Recorded September 23, 1990, The Bechstein Concert Hall, Berlin (vocal and percussion added September 22, 1990) · FMP · Produced by Not specified in available sources
Solo Piano, Voice, and Spiritual Architecture
Taylor's fingers construct minor thirds and diminished sevenths into something beautiful, then he speaks over it all.
Double Holy House arrived on FMP as a document of Taylor's late-career reach — not a return to anything, but a deepening of what he'd always been doing. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings gave it four stars, while AllMusic's Thom Jurek heard it as proof that Taylor could still surprise: a ballad opening that's genuinely lovely, built from understated harmonic color rather than the explosive velocity he was known for. The first half is pure piano, six minutes of minor thirds and glissandi that sound meditative without being soft. Then Taylor enters, half-speaking, half-whispering text over silence, letting his voice become another instrument rather than a lyric delivery system. Gradually percussion and piano creep in as texture, as sound effect, until the voice is swallowed and the piano takes over entirely. By the fifteen-minute mark it's all architecture again — architecture being Taylor's word for free improvisation that has shape. This isn't Taylor reinventing himself; it's an artist who'd been working this territory for decades finding one more angle into it. The added vocals and percussion (recorded separately the day before) could have felt grafted on, but instead they register as deliberate compositional choices, another way to disrupt the listener's expectation of what a solo piano concert should be.
Who's playing
Cecil Taylorpercussion
Where next?
More by Cecil Taylor
All 77 albums →
