Cecil Taylor

French television documentary about Cecil Taylor.

Retracing the longstanding career of avant-garde drummer Sunny Murray, one of the most influential figures of the Free jazz revolution. Through a series of interviews with key time witnesses as well as historic and contemporary concert footage, it reassesses the relationship between the libertarian music movement and the political events of the 1960s, whose social claims it so intimately reflected. By doing so, it also recounts how the most radical forms of musical expression were excluded from the major production and distribution networks as the libertarian ideal went out of fashion. Beyond its historical approach, the film follows Sunny Murray on current gigs, showing his daily struggle to perpetuate a musical genre which is still widely ignored by the general public. In doing so, Sunny's time now also dwells on the near-clandestine community of aficionados who continue to worship the gods of their musical coming of age, and whose unfaltering support has permitted free ...

Cecil Taylor was the grand master of free jazz piano. "All the Notes" captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.

1984 performance by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Cecil Taylor

An examination, shown through both interviews and performances, of the avant-garde free jazz movement which reigned during the 1960s.

Photos and interviews by Livio Minafra, carried out between Ruvo di Puglia and Paris between 2000 and 2002. Interview Renato Geremia, Guido Mazzon, Martin Mayes, Marcello Lorrai and Francesco Martinelli. Taylor and Instabile video concert commissioned to Giovanni Visaggio, Video Art Studio by Pino Minafra during Talos Festival 2000 in Ruvo di Puglia.

In 1973, Leonid Samuilovich flees the USSR and lands a job at the BBC in London. Five years later, radio host Alexei Leonidov starts releasing clandestine recordings smuggled from totalitarian countries via intricate cloak-and-dagger operations. Today, 86-year-old music producer Leo Feigin sits on top of over 30.000 LPs, contemplating on the meaning of his work amidst the grim outlook of new Iron Curtains. Leo Records is a symbol of musical resistance against authoritarian regimes and a pioneer of what we now know as avant-garde.