Taylor's First Solo Statement, Unaccompanied
Taylor alone at the piano, no rhythm section, no safety net—just ideas colliding at high speed.
By 1968, Cecil Taylor had spent over a decade leading ensembles, but Praxis represents something he had not yet committed to record: himself, alone at the piano. Recorded live in Italy that July, it captures Taylor in a mode that would later define much of his work—continuous, densely textured, rhythmically fractured improvisation with no accompaniment to anchor or constrain him. The double LP format allows real space for development; these are not miniatures but extended explorations where ideas accumulate and transform across twenty or thirty minutes at a time.
Without a rhythm section, Taylor's left hand becomes the pulse, though not in any traditional swing sense. His approach here is percussive and architectural—the piano treated as an instrument of pure sound rather than chord changes. The music moves through what sounds like classical technique applied to free improvisation, passages of near-crystalline clarity interrupted by blocks of dense, cluster-like density. It's rigorous and demanding listening, uncompromising in its refusal to settle into comfortable patterns.
Praxis arrived when Taylor's aesthetic was fully formed but still finding its recorded shape. This solo performance clarified something essential: that he did not need a band to sustain complexity or forward momentum. The fact that it remained unreleased on CD for decades speaks to its difficulty, but also to its specificity—a document of one pianist's thinking, unmediated and direct.
Who's playing
Cecil Taylorpiano
