Search - Cecil Taylor :: One Too Many Salty Swift & Not Go

1978 CTU rocks out!

Joe Pierre | Los Angeles, CA United States | 01/19/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

""One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye." Okay, so we have no idea what the title means, but this album is without a doubt one of CT's best. The band is CT and the Unit (Jimmy Lyons (alto), Raphe Malik (trumpet), Ramsey Ameen (violin), Sirone (bass), and Ronald Shannon Jackson (drums)) and the recording is from a live concert in Stuttgart from 1978. I am a big fan with a large CD collection of CT, but this one never made it in until just recently -- mainly because I tend to shy away from CT's larger ensemble groups especially when Lyons is involved, not to mention this is a costly double-album purchase. But I finally picked it up at a bargain and now I see what I was missing. Maybe there's something about Germany that seems to always gets CT fired up, or maybe it's Ronald Shannon Jackson here, but the CTU is simply rocking out on this album.



It turns out there was no reason for me to be wary about a larger ensemble group. On disc 1 of this special edition Hatology re-release, there are essentially no passages of full sextet. Instead, the first short track is an explorative duet with Lyons and Malik, the second has Ameen and Sirone (mostly arco after a brief start at pizacatto) dialoguing while the third is a Jackson drum solo. The liner notes say this was CT's tour strategy of generating a "certain type of intensity" before he took the stage. Certainly there's some anticipation, and it is fully satisfied with tracks 4 and 5, which are essentially just one 50-minute tune. And what a powerhouse tune it is... the horns are there briefly in the beginning to state a theme, but the rest has CT going at it with Jackson, Sirone, and Ameen sans horns and it's some of the very best trio and quartet music I've heard from CT and I've heard a lot. CT is in the best form of his career as he displays his usual virtuouso's palette of madcap runs and cascading power chords. I'm a particular fan of Jackson here -- he's certainly cut his teeth and he's not content with just embellishing -- he duels with reckless abandon, but doesn't clash with CT. Sirone's bass is amply miked throughout, making for a nice upfront bass sound, and the whole concert is recorded and mixed very cleanly. What else can I say but that the music rocks -- CT is aggressive and at his best, and Jackson really adds to the intensity.



Disc 2 essentially picks right up where the 70+ minutes of disc 1 left off, with the first 15 minutes of track 1 continuing with trio and quartet work. About half way though, the horns join in for some relaxed explorations where they're playing on top of each other -- honestly, this is the kind of CTU playing that I don't particularly care for. But it's short-lived and soon Lyons yields to Malik as he takes the first extended solo -- he's got a bracing, brassy, and almost vibrato tone and his solo matches the aggression on disc 1. Track 2 is then a showcase for Jimmy Lyons and he takes off on a characteristic extended solo backed by the quartet. I must say I'm not a huge Lyons fan, but his blowing here is pretty damn good and later Ameen, CT, and Jackson match his intensity for some dense, multi-layered mayhem. Lyons' solo ends with applause from the crowd, and track 3 starts with CT displaying his typical rage and fury in solo without the group. Then drums (Jackson now more restrained) and bass join in for trio music, and then at 20 minutes, Ameen enters with some classical sounding lines. He then takes the lead solo with the quartet before things finally mellow out and come to a close.



And so, any reservations I had about the album were completely unfounded and in fact this may be Cecil's greatest concert on disc. CT is at the height of his powers and instrumentation-wise there are all kinds of variations, with minimal overlap of sax and trumpet, which is good news to me. The ensemble playing is similar then to "Dark Unto Themselves," but there is so much more here too -- CT soloing, CT with a power-trio, Ameen on strings, Jackson's fierce battery, and the fine solos by Malik and Lyons on disc 2. The only thing missing is any poetry, chanting, or vocalisms -- good riddance for some, no doubt. For me, having amassed some 50 CT discs, I thought I'd heard it all, but this is simply awesome.

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