Quotes by Cecil Taylor - Page 1

To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Music
Orchestra
Piano
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Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Music
Ability
Jazz Improvisation
Oneself
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Rhythm is the life of space of time danced through.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Space
Rhythm
Life Time Space
Through
Danced
Life Space Time
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To feel is perhaps the most terrifying thing in this society.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Feels
This Society
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Lena Horne - when she walked onstage, she really was Erzulie.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Onstage
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Doesn't that fool know I recorded that song because I like it?
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Music
Fool
Song
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I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Space
Dancer
Piano
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Fats - very funny man, but every note that he played was like a pearl.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Fats
Note
Pearl
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The quality of life, values that go down to doin' that, that's the issue.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Quality
Issues
Quality Of Life
Doin
Issue
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Sometimes when it goes really well, you wonder, "who's that at the piano?"
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Piano
Sometimes
Wonder
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Mother, being a pianist, told me how to play with my fingers on the piano.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Fingers
Pianist
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You know what the material is so that you never play it the same way twice.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Twice
Way Never Know
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I discovered very early that it wasn't quite enough for me to imitate people.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Music
Jazz
People
Enough Me People
Discovered
Me People Enough
Imitate
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When you play, when you perform, it might be for the last time, so you got to do it.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Last Time
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When I came out of the conservatory, the first thing I did was to go see Thelonious Monk.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Conservatory
Monk
First Thing
The First Thing
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I've always tried to be a poet more than anything else. I mean, professional musicians die.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Anything Else
More Than Anything
Musicians
Tried
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You must surrender whatever preconceptions you have about music if you're really interested in it.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Music
Jazz
Preconceptions
Surrender
Interested
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Find one note on the instrument that pleases you, and then find another note that also pleases you.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Instrument
Note
Pleases
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I am not afraid of European influences. The point is to use them, as Ellington did, as part of my life as an American Negro.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Life I Am My Life
Influences
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If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Creation
Goal
Musical
Life Music Your
Overall
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I understand about the relative strengths of people, and I don't think people have to be anything. They can be nothin' if they want to be.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
People
Relative
Thinking
Want
Nothin
Strengths
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Before he fought Billy Conn, Joe Louis said, 'He can run, but he can't hide.' That's how I feel about New York: You can run from it, but you can't hide.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
New York
Louis
Billy
Run
Fought
Hide
Joe
York
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Someone once asked me if I was gay. I said, 'Do you think a three-letter word defines the complexity of my humanity?' I avoid the trap of easy definition.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Complexity
Easy
Humanity
Asked
Avoid
Defines
Word
Trap
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They say, 'We will give you money, but we want you to play this or that.' And I always thought, 'If I'm going to do that, I might as well go back and be a dishwasher.'
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Dishwasher
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The first record I made, when I listen to it, I understand. I understand perfectly well why certain musicians were unhappy with me. I had to decide: was I unhappy with me? I liked it. If they didn't like it, it was on them.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Unhappy
Perfectly
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When you think about musicians who are reading music, my contention has always been the energy that you're using deciphering what the symbol is is taking away from the maximum creative energy that you might have had if you understood that it's but a symbol.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Contention
Creative Energy
Maximum
Symbol
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The emphasis in each piece is on building a whole, totally integrated structure. In doing this, we try to carry on - in ensemble as well as solo sections - the mood of a jazz soloist. I mean that principle of kinetic improvisation that keeps a jazz solo building.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Emphasis
Ensemble
Improvisation
Integrated
Mood
Sections
Solo
Principle
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In short, [Coltrane's] tone is beautiful because it is functional. In other words, it is always involved in saying something. You can't separate the means that a man uses to say something from what he ultimately says. Technique is not separated from its content in a great artist.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Artist
Beautiful
Mean
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I'm saying that people who are enmeshed in situations of subjugation and have to live, have to find ways to project their dignity as human beings - in spite of all the efforts of those around them to degrade them - I'm saying that this music is the manifestation of the dignity in the life that has always been present.
Cecil Taylor / Jazz Pianist
Degrade
Dignity
Human Beings
Manifestation
Spite
Subjugation
Life Music Always
Life Music People
Beings
Efforts
Project
Present
Saying
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Cecil Taylor Quotes - Page 1

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