Summer Reading: Buy My Book!

The first full-length biography of Cecil Taylor is OUT NOW

This is a special bonus newsletter; there’ll be another one coming on Wednesday, as usual.

I read an essay recently (and promptly lost the link, sorry) about the fact that artists don’t do enough to promote their work. This is something I am absolutely guilty of. Let’s say I write an article; once it’s published, I post a link to it in one or two spots (this newsletter, on Twitter and/or Facebook), and then I move on with my life. Even if it’s really good, there’s something in me, Gen Xer that I am, that shies away from prolonged, naked self-promotion.

But you know what? I have a book out — my fourth (fifth counting the anthology, Marooned, that I edited in 2007) — and you’re gonna be hearing about it for the rest of the year, if not longer. In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor has just been published by Wolke Verlag in Germany, and you can order it directly from them. They ship via DHL and people in the US, Canada, the UK and Europe have all reported receiving their copies very quickly, so buy! buy! buy!

You can also get it from Amazon; it costs more there, but the shipping may be cheaper.

(I have a few copies that I will sell directly to people in the US. I’ll even sign it for you, if you want. Get in touch via burningambulance@gmail.com and we’ll figure it out.)

(If you’re a journalist who’d like to review the book, you too can email me and I’ll send you a PDF.)

You can read an excerpt from the book, dealing with the recording of the 1999 Dewey Redman/Cecil Taylor/Elvin Jones album Momentum Space, on The Wire’s website. That was not only one of just three times Taylor played a sideman’s role, it was also the last studio session of his life — from that point on, all his recordings were live.

I’ve also got a feature in an upcoming issue of DownBeat that deals with Taylor’s final years — the Open Plan: Cecil Taylor show at the Whitney Museum, the trial of the man who cheated him out of his Kyoto Prize winnings, his withdrawal into seclusion, his death, and some of the (still unresolved) chaos surrounding his lack of a will or estate. So look out for that; if they post it on their website, I’ll share the link.

Early reviews have been positive, for which I’m intensely grateful. The Wire calls it “a Taylor completist’s, or for that matter a late 20th century art aficionado’s, dream come true,” Phil Overeem says it “gathers much info that’s out there in one place” and “advances some critical arguments very convincingly,” and Ken Shimamoto calls it “a highly readable book, worthy of its subject.”

I’m being totally straight with you when I say that this is the best thing I’ve ever written, and the book I’m proudest of. Cecil Taylor is a major American artist whose reputation does not come close to matching the scope of his achievements. I wrote In the Brewing Luminous to change the way people listen to and think about his music. I hope it will be received in that spirit. So buy it, and read it, and tell me what you think.

That’s it for now. See you on Wednesday, when we’ll be back to talking about other people’s work.