In The Brewing Luminous: Chapter 4 Excerpt

An exclusive for paying subscribers

I am currently writing In the Brewing Luminous: The Life and Music Of Cecil Taylor for publication by Wolke Verlag in 2024. Here’s an excerpt from the first draft of the fourth chapter. (To read the full excerpt, become a paid subscriber for $5 a month/$50 a year.) Everything you read is subject to change, but this is where things stand right now.

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Candid Records was launched by Archie Bleyer, a bandleader and song arranger born in Corona, Queens almost exactly 20 years before Cecil Taylor. Bleyer first founded Cadence Records in 1952, while working as musical director for radio and TV personality Arthur Godfrey. The label had hits with songs from artists like the Everly Brothers, the all-female vocal quartet the Chordettes, and guitarist Link Wray. In 1960, Bleyer decided that the success of other independent jazz labels like Blue Note and Prestige showed that there was room for one more, and he hired Hentoff to serve as A&R man and producer for Candid.

“Archie promised that I could record whomever I wanted, whether he understood the music or not,” Hentoff wrote in 1988. “An honorable man, Archie kept his word, and I was never overruled. One of the first musicians I contacted for a session was Cecil. Though I never found out explicitly, I gathered that Archie Bleyer enjoyed that album.”

In fact, two albums were produced with Candid’s money. In October 1960, The World of Cecil Taylor was recorded, and in January 1961, Taylor and Buell Neidlinger went back to make New York City R&B, under the bassist’s leadership. Enough material was produced that three compilations of outtakes — Air, Cell Walk for Celeste, and Jumpin’ Punkins — were issued in the 1970s and 1980s. Eventually, all this material and more was assembled into a four-CD box, The Complete Candid Recordings of Cecil Taylor and Buell Neidlinger, by the Mosaic label.

Other albums Hentoff produced for Candid during the label’s 13 months of operation included titles by Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Booker Ervin, Abbey Lincoln, Steve Lacy, Booker Little, Jaki Byard, and Eric Dolphy, as well as some blues discs by Otis Spann, Memphis Slim, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. The catalog ran to about 30 titles before Bleyer shut down Cadence in 1964 due to financial difficulties. Since then, titles have cycled in and out of print with some regularity. The material is strong enough that labels often decide it’s worth reissuing one more time.

On October 12, 1960, Taylor, Shepp, Neidlinger and Charles entered the studio for the first time. Over the course of six hours, they worked on four of the pianist’s compositions — “Air,” “E.B.,” “Lazy Afternoon,” and “Number One” — and a version of the song “This Nearly Was Mine,” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. All of these pieces but “Number One” would ultimately wind up on The World of Cecil Taylor.