The visionary piano virtuoso Cecil Taylor was commissioned by the Library of Congress to write a work for violin and piano in 1999. The result was Taylor's "Algonquin"–an intensely joyful dialogue between violinist Mat Maneri and Taylor. Taylor's score bridges the gap between jazz and classical music–between improvisation and notated music. As annotator Bill Shoemaker writes: "A Taylor score opens a moment of intense creativity, but only for that moment; afterwards, the score is merely part of the record, fodder for the files. What endures in Taylor's music defies notation, conventional or otherwise. It begs the question: Is a score that is little more than an outline, and designed only for a single use, as legitimate as one where all aspects of performance are specified, and has been repeatedly performed over for years, decades and even centuries? Given the exhilarating energy conveyed through this recording, the answer is surely yes."
Reviews:
"The visionary piano virtuoso Cecil Taylor was commissioned by the Library of Congress in 1999. Algonquin, Taylor's intensely joyful dialogue for violin and piano, bridges the gap between jazz and classical music. - Paristransatlantic.com
"I call Algonquin a symphony. No one else would, I’m sure, because it’s scored for only two musicians. Yet the cosmic reach of this work, its four-movement structure and length, the myriad of sound-worlds summoned up in its loosely sketched and mostly improvisatory invention, and the pyrotechnical love invested in its monumental drama, suggest a larger conceit than mere pedestrian words such as 'suite,' 'sonata' or some vague term like 'impressions' or 'images' can convey." - People's World
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Cecil Taylor, piano
Mat Maneri, violin
BRIDGE 9146