Space probes: Free-jazz veterans pay a poised tribute to Cecil Taylor

William Parker, Enrico Rava, Andrew Cyrille

 A well-laid-out program of a trio's tribute to the avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor is also a showcase for spontaneous music-making by surefooted veteran artists.

"2 Blues for Cecil" takes its understated title from just two of the tracks on the ten-track disc (TUM Records Oy). The compatible musicians are Enrico Rava, flugelhorn; William Parker, bass, and Andrew Cyrille, drums. Recorded last winter in Paris, the program is notable for its sturdy reliance on a minimalist texture that holds up because of the self-assurance with which each member of the trio contributes to the whole. 

Rava, an Italian now 82 years old, is an inspiring example of the level of independence European jazz was able to assert starting in the 1970s with respect to advances in the American mainstream. Influenced by Miles Davis, the trumpeter-flugelhornist was poised to take to the outside the American master's much-lauded use of "space" — that is, a way of establishing a new kind of cohesiveness and even lyricism that made creative use of intermittent silence.

Underpacking the musical luggage is an approach to which the American veteran musicians Parker and Cyrille are also well-suited. Though the honoree, Cecil Taylor, was almost infamous for a heavily loaded all-keyboard style, this trio feels no need to mimic the avant-garde pianist's approach. What the trio members have in common is an open stance about matters of harmony, rhythm, and the interplay between melody and unmoored single-line statements. The textures allow considerable light to shine through.

There is little this threesome doesn't know about the fruitful results of remaining adventurous. Cyrille, also 82, has a long history of labors in the avant-garde vineyards and, of the three musicians, the longest association (15 years) with Taylor.  Parker, the youngster at 70, is a prolific recording artist with ceaseless activity at the frontiers of exploration on his instrument.

Playfulness sometimes makes an honest appearance central to a style that is often taken to be an unrelieved search for profundity. A case in point is "Ballerina," with an almost childlike tune laid down by the flugelhornist after a fluttery start.  Like a dancer's leaps, the trio boosts itself abruptly off the floor, airborne often with Cyrille's subtle cymbal flights. "I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes," Taylor once said. "I think of rhythm in terms of dance," Cyrille told Valerie Wilmer (As Serious as Your Life) after citing that remark.

The two "Blues for Cecil" draw upon the trio's authentic blues sensibility, emphasizing how Taylor was explcit about his devotion to the roots of black American music. He once surprised the jazz critic Gary Giddins (who was proud of his "super-hip jazz record collection") by asking with a trace of disdain: "Got any James Brown?"

The one piece originating from outside this inspired group is the set-closer, the Rodgers-Hart evergreen "My Funny Valentine." Rava's essential lyricism is especially highlighted in this brief account, and there's lots of space for him to evoke two of his inspirations: Miles Davis and Chet Baker. 

But the mutual admiration among the group is everywhere present, especially in Cyrille's collegial tribute, "Enrava Melody." And Parker's new piece is a shared personal statement with a climbing vibe, named "Machu Picchu" for the 15th-century Inca citadel and perennial tourist attraction in Peru. But the main heights climbed in this release are those that enable these three sages to indicate and embody the enduring strength of jazz at its ever-present frontiers. And, as Sun Ra, another jazz visionary, used to say: "Space is the place."