"Cecil Taylor's life was a string of mysteries that made a beautiful necklace of precious
sounds dances and poetry he called music. Philip Freeman's book In the Brewing Luminous gives
us a wonderful glimpse of Cecil's life and music. Hopefully this book will inspire us all in
ways we can't imagine." (William Parker) For 60 years Cecil Taylor's music marked the
farthest boundary of avant-garde jazz. His volcanic piano improvisations delivered with
astonishing technical command and unrelenting power at marathon length were regarded as the
ultimate in free jazz. But Taylor was much more than that: He was one of jazz's (and America's)
great composers and arrangers developing a unique and instantly recognizable compositional
voice and a radical method of transmitting his ideas that in effect taught the members of his
ensembles to speak an entirely new musical language. In the Brewing Luminous is the first
full-length biography of Cecil Taylor. In the Brewing Luminous takes the reader from his birth
in 1929 to his death in 2018 and beyond. It provides detailed analysis of his extensive body of
work which encompassed solo performance and ensembles of every size from duos to big bands
and included work meant to accompany dancers and theatrical performances. It also explores his
poetry and the broader milieu of which he was a part. Taylor was not an island he was a
fixture on the New York cultural scene and welcomed with open arms in Germany Italy Japan and
elsewhere. And he did not work in isolation - his bands were crucial collaborators and his
music was impossible to imagine without the contributions of players like alto saxophonist
Jimmy Lyons bassist William Parker and drummer Andrew Cyrille all of whom and many more are
discussed here as well. Philip Freeman is a veteran music journalist and the author of New
York Is Now!: The New Wave Of Free Jazz Running The Voodoo Down: The Electric Music Of Miles
Davis and Ugly Beauty: Jazz In The 21st Century. He lives in Montana. With a contribution by
Markus Müller
