You don't listen to Cecil Taylor (my favorite living pianist) as much as experience him. More often than not he begins one of his extended solo or group pieces with thematic cells stated in quiet, restless octaves, single notes, or sparse clusters of chords. Since the early 1980s he's been sneaking in bits of spoken word. As he gets going, the material slips and slides up and down several octaves and eventually envelops the entire instrument at super speeds. A musician friend of mine once described Taylor's high-velocity keyboard prowess as treating the piano like a punching bag. That's not really true. There's certainly a percussive side to Taylor's decisive, frighteningly ambidextrous articulation, yet the phrase shapes always seem to arise from melodic impulses no matter how fast they transpire. Think of Erroll Garner's rolling, unpredictable solo introductions blown up to feature size, and you'll realize that Taylor is not so avant-garde as he appears on the surface.
