''Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants)'' is an album by

Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in comple ...

recorded in Milan, Italy on October 22–24, 1984, and released on the

Soul Note Black Saint and Soul Note are two affiliated Italian independent record labels. Since their conception in the 1970s, they have released albums from a variety of influential jazz musicians, particularly in the genre of free jazz. History Black S ...

label. The album features performances by Taylor with

Jimmy Lyons Jimmy Lyons (December 1, 1931 – May 19, 1986) was an American alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit. Lyons was the only constant member of the band from the mid-1960s until his death. Taylor never ...

Enrico Rava Enrico Rava (born 20 August 1939), is an Italian jazz trumpeter. He started on trombone, then changed to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis. Career He was born in Trieste, Italy. His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri's ...

Tomasz Stanko Tomasz is a Polish given name, the equivalent of Thomas in English. Notable people with the given name include: * Tomasz Adamek (born 1976), Polish heavyweight boxer * Tomasz Arciszewski (1877–1955), Polish socialist politician and Prime M ...

, Frank Wright,

John Tchicai John Martin Tchicai ( ; 28 April 1936 – 8 October 2012) was a Danish free jazz saxophonist and composer. Biography Tchicai was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to a Danish mother and a Congolese father. The family moved to Aarhus, where he s ...

Gunter Hampel Gunter Hampel (born 31 August 1937) is a German jazz vibraphonist, clarinettist, saxophonist, flautist, pianist, and composer. He became dedicated to free jazz in the 1960s, developing a record label (Birth Records) and working with Jeanne Lee, ...

Karen Borca Karen Borca (born September 5, 1948, in Green Bay, Wisconsin) is an American avant-garde jazz and free jazz bassoonist. Early life and education Borca studied music at the University of Wisconsin with John Barrows and Arthur Weisberg, graduat ...

, Andre Martinez, William Parker and

Rashid Bakr Rashid Bakr may refer to: * Rashid Bakr (musician) (born 1943), American free jazz drummer * Rashid Bakr (politician) El Rashid El Tahir Bakr (24 June 1933 – 11 March 1988) was born in the Karkoj Blue Nile region of Sudan. In 1958 he gr ...

who are billed as the Orchestra of Two Continents.

Reception

The

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

review by

Scott Yanow Scott Yanow (born 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author. Life and career Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Beginning in 1974, Yanow was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles and was the jazz e ...

states, "On the four Taylor originals, the colorful ensembles are quite dense although there is room for individual solos and heroics. Not too surprisingly Cecil Taylor is very much in control of the music". The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings called the album "an important and insufficiently recognized record", and commented: "mainly these are exploding, brilliantly coloured ensemble improvisations where the horns... make superbly euphoric collective statements. Densely characterized though Taylor's music is, these musicians make their way into it with the highest courage, and the results are extraordinarily compelling."

Gary Giddins Gary Giddins (born 1948) is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for ''The Village Voice'' from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986, Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented conc ...

described the album as "a singularly merry caper", and wrote: "Ever since the 1961 'Bulbs' (''Into the Hot''), Taylor has shown a tantalizing talent for voicing saxophones; all he's ever needed is two to get a firm, woodsy, consistent sonority that sounds like nothing else in or out of jazz. This despite constancy in one chair (Lyons) and constant change in the other: Archie Shepp on ''Into the Hot'', Ken Mclntyre on ''Unit Structures'', Sam Rivers on ''The Great Concert''..., and David S. Ware on ''Dark to Themselves''... For ''Winged Serpent'', Lyons was one of five reed players... and the variants produced by that choir moor the work. To say that Taylor is in his element, threading his way through the reeds, two brasses, two drummers, and bass, romping polyrhythmically in and around every collective outburst and sigh, is to say nothing of the measured care with which he organized his unit structures."

Track listing

:''All compositions by Cecil Taylor.'' # "Taht" – 8:50 # "Womb Waters Scent of the Burning Armadillo Shell" – 13:04 # "Cun-Un-Un-An" – 7:10 # "Winged Serpent" – 13:54 :*Recorded in Milan, Italy on October 22–24, 1984

Personnel

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgians, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭ ( ...

, vocals *

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

, vocals *

: trumpet, vocals * Frank Wright:

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (whi ...

, vocals *

: tenor saxophone,

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

, vocals *

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone (sometimes abbreviated to "bari sax") is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass saxophone, bass. It is the lowe ...

, bass clarinet, vocals *

bassoon The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...

, vocals * William Parker:

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

, vocals *

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

, vocals *Andre Martinez: drums,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

, vocals

References

{{Authority control 1985 albums Cecil Taylor albums Black Saint/Soul Note albums