1989 · Album
Spots, Circles, and Fantasy
Recorded July 10, 1988, Berlin · FMP · Personnel: [Cecil Taylor] (piano), [Han Bennink] (drums)
Two Pianists at Full Throttle in Berlin
Nearly 74 minutes of duet energy that seems to accelerate rather than tire.
By 1988, Cecil Taylor had spent three decades demolishing the boundary between composition and improvisation, between melody and abstraction. This Berlin performance with Han Bennink finds him in his seventies, still restless, still searching. It is not a retrospective or a victory lap — it is a working session, two musicians testing what happens when one stops holding back.
Taylor and Bennink had collaborated before, but this particular night — recorded July 10, 1988 — catches something urgent. AllMusic reviewer Thom Jurek heard it clearly: the album starts tense and minimal, almost cautious, then builds into something genuinely fierce. By the time it ends, nearly 74 minutes later, both players are fully engaged, as if they were only warming up at the beginning. Bennink's drumming pushes and responds; Taylor's piano swings between percussive attack and abstract gesture, never settling into comfort.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz awarded it 4 stars and singled it out as one of the particularly brilliant examples of Taylor's adaptive capabilities. This matters because it proves that late in his career, working with a sympathetic partner in a live setting, Taylor could still surprise. The album demands patience — there is no head, no chorus, no traditional structure to grip. But listeners willing to sit with the tension and momentum will find themselves inside two musicians genuinely conversing, neither one following the other, both refusing to coast.
Who's playing
Cecil Taylorpiano
Han Benninkdrums
Where next?
More by Cecil Taylor
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