Cecil TaylorRest in Peace

Oh my, Grace Cathedral is such a massive and superior place for the delivery of extraordinary blessings on high. It is gorgeous, stimulating and stunningly beautiful! After a day of trains to the City, back to Oakland and back to the City once again, to just be still was a thrill, but not my heart.

Blood flow would certainly be at an increased capacity once Cecil started to light it up.  The Cathedral was packed and luckily one of the ushers spotted a couple of great seats for me. The lights dimmed and the spotlight was on the piano. Cecil was not there but, you heard his voice peering from the unknown. Metaphysically sophisticated rants of poetic verbal reverberations start off as small waves and pass through the sea of beings getting greater as they reach the rear of the cathedral. Upon their return you are slightly surrounded by the single sound which has grown exponentially in clarity and complexity.

 Cecil makes his transition of languages and while the air is still ringing with the sustain of his poetry. The space is filled with audible thematic cinemas depicting one’s own personal images of past, present and future. The journey of the dance begins and although your body will not physically rise, cerebrally you will touch on lands and end up in the “Thinker” back on the same shores, but in a totally different state. There are galaxies unknown to man but perhaps Cecil has tapped into the source and is interpreting its signals. From thunderous chords to sheets of cascading notes, the relevance of form, structure and composition melt in to one continuous source of positive energy; like looking at the code in the Matrix. The speed by which the information is traveling through him to the piano is so fast that the sounds tax the system creating a vortex between reality and the pure source of inspiration. Yes, he is human but he is red pill plugged in!

 Cecil blasts off and so much is seen from the portal of his ship. Musically, he documents his hypothesis, provides sufficient data for his theories, logs the encrypted information in his journal and the beautiful cipher is enjoyed yet remains unbroken. The world exists as a drop of water and the entity gets smaller as the experience approaches infinity. There could be no more perfect of a place for the spirit, the energy and the music to connect; the euphoric crossroads of life, journey, destiny, reason and purpose.

The experience is like the staring into a changing image with respect to the music. As you listen, concentrate and feel the music, the images formulate and the ears open wide! If there is any type of distraction the image is instantly gone and you must go back to the beginning to find a new path to synchronization. I had my eyes closed and was totally engrossed in the music until, the young lady next to me, as fine as she was released her toxic Kimchi carbon monoxide fermentation in my direction and literally blew me out of the water. DRAKARUS!

LeRoy Downs