“He doesn’t come from my community,” replies avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, hidden deep behind dark glasses, when asked by the interviewer about Stockhausen. The same response follows for questions about Bach and John Cage. In a style characteristic of 1968, the African-American musician, filmed in an old French palace with oversized chimneys, dismisses European traditions in
favour of “across the track” culture – the lived experiences of African-Americans.In this instalment in a five-part series for French television on modern music, Taylor discusses the philosophy of music and performance, rendering his points with an opaque, two-handed intensity on the piano that pushes bebop into abstract expressionism, and the film crew into a visceral pool of sound. Gérard Patris and Juliette Bort (as editor) respond with abrupt, rapid cuts, mirroring the music’s intensity with compelling precision. Like Taylor, who moves fluidly between music and poetry, the filmmakers shift from textless opening credits (where names are spoken aloud) to on-screen text and textual interjections, embracing the avant-garde in what becomes a duet between cinema and the Taylor quartet.

Ehsan Khoshbakht