Showing the man behind the music
"This is not indecision," Cecil Taylor says in a scene from "Cecil Taylor All the Notes," a documentary that premieres tomorrow night at the Museum of Fine Arts. The 74-year-old avant-garde pianist and composer is rummaging through his closet trying to find just the right attire for a concert he's about to give at Alice Tully Hall. But he could just as easily be explaining his deliberate approach to music.
Like Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane, Taylor has pursued his vision without compromise. If, over the course of his 50-year career, his music has attracted public or critical acclaim, fine. But if not, the last person losing sleep over it is Taylor himself. He last performed in Boston in October, as part of Jordan Hall's 100th anniversary.
The 71-minute film, an unfinished copy made available for review, is about as far from a Ken Burns-type documentary as Taylor's music is from Wynton Marsalis's. Director Christopher Felver trains his lens on Taylor and reveals an artist who enjoys wrestling with the big questions.
Felver's insistence on having Taylor speak directly to the camera turns the audience into the musician's confidant as he imparts his carefully constructed views on topics ranging from composition ("Hit one note you like, then another note you like in combination with that. That's how you begin to make your own music") to artistic commitment to the work of architect Santiago Calatrava.
The film includes several short concert segments featuring Taylor's wholly original style, one that fuses classical technique with in-the-moment jazz improv. But Felver is more interested in showing us the person behind all that music. Taylor invites us into his practice routine and discusses his original system of musical notation, one that would give even Will Hunting pause.
Felver occasionally bows to documentary convention by including interview clips with poets Amiri Baraka and Al Young, drummer Elvin Jones, and others who sing Taylor's praises and explain the cultural significance of his music. For sheer intensity though, these segments can't compete with those that feature Taylor himself, whether he's rehearsing a student orchestra, pirouetting around his apartment to a Lena Horne recording, or abruptly leaving the piano at the end of a piece as if a fire alarm had gone off.
"Cecil Taylor All the Notes" is an extreme close-up of an artist who pulls no punches. Rather than campaigning for our affections, the film simply puts Taylor and his work on display and lets us decide whether to love or hate, debate or ignore.
"Cecil's an enigmatic character; that's what attracted me to him," director Felver says by phone from his home in Sausalito, Calif. The director and editors Nancy Main and David Giles are working furiously to complete "Cecil Taylor All the Notes" before tomorrow's premiere. Felver will be on hand to introduce the film. An accomplished photographer whose work has been collected in several books, Felver has made a handful of films, nearly all of which will be screened at the MFA the next few weeks. Composer John Cage and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti are among the subjects he's tackled prior to Taylor.Ted Joans, the late Beat poet, introduced Felver to Taylor in 1984. "I saw him perform and that was it," Felver says. "Nobody puts out a sound like Cecil Taylor. Originally, I decided to make a film with him, and he decided he'd let me. It took about 10 years to get to it."Felver says he started shooting video footage of Taylor in 1997 and continued through a performance at the San Francisco Jazz Festival this past October. The process was anything but formal."You go over to Cecil's house, and sometimes you get something and sometimes you get nothing," Felver says.
"It was an interesting mix of personalities -- Chris is persistent, and I'm stubborn," Taylor says by phone from his Brooklyn home. Taylor, who has seen the first hour of the film and may attend tomorrow night's premiere, seems satisfied with Felver's portrait.
When asked whether the film is an accurate representation of the artist in question, Taylor comes as close to delivering a straightforward answer as he ever does. "I thought he captured what was to be captured," he says.
