ONLINE EXTRA: All Tomorrow’s Parties, Day 1

By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Cecil Taylor is quite a character. Starting his set on an
offstage microphone, Taylor chose to introduce his music with a
reading that included math equations and facts about electrons,
read in different voices and interrupted by goblin-esque noises.
After a few minutes of that, Taylor shuffled into view in an
oversized white shirt and black pants tucked into multi-colored
socks, with no shoes.

His music, which closed the first night of All Tomorrow’s
Parties in Royce Hall on Thursday, was just as unconventional. When
Taylor began to play the piano, an assault of notes came flying
out, not leading to any melody or structured composition, but
rather to more flurries of notes. To distinguish between a dramatic
pause and the end of a song, Taylor hopped up after his first
piece, and began to read more science and math facts. His voice
sometimes low and often high and distorted, he paced around the
stage, not even close to the microphone, and not really projecting.
He banged on the top of the piano and stomped his feet for
emphasis, before taking a seat and starting to play again. His
talent as a piano player was clear, and he certainly had loyal fans
in the audience, who called him back for two encores. However it is
difficult to stay into an hourlong solo performance, especially
when not a single melody or consistent rhythm could be found.

The fact that Royce Hall was less than half full reinforces that
this music, while appreciated by those who were there, wasn’t
for everyone. Taylor’s set followed an evening of spoken word
performances. Nathaniel Mackey read several poems about or inspired
by music, which was fitting for the first performance of the
four-day-long music festival. His poems were interesting, but Yoda
he spoke like, and the crowd’s response was lukewarm.

Another lackluster reading was given by Gerard Malanga, whose
style and poems were too sedate to for the concert hall setting,
although in a more intimate space they probably would have been
better appreciated. Ira Cohen, on the other hand, gave a lively
reading that created an early high point. In fact, his delivery
style wasn’t the only lively thing about him. Wearing a red
shirt and a shiny gold scarf under a long flowing coat, with long
hair and a full beard, he was one staff short of looking like a
wizard. His poems contained vivid images and several humorous
points, and the audience responded well.

Lydia Lunch gave the most popular of the readings. Her style was
angry, critical, and funny at the same time. Her material can be
most easily described by what she was against. She was
anti-government, anti-corporate, anti-society, anti-Bush, anti-war,
anti-media, and especially anti-male, although she clarified that
since she only hates men in power, she didn’t hate any of the
men in the audience. Her set was a success, and she was the only
one of the poets to elicit applause and cheers mid-poem. Tying
together the poetry and jazz sides of the concert was

John Sinclair, who read his work over a two-person horn section.
The horn players operated independently of one another, with
Sinclair’s words acting as a through line that made a little
more sense of it all. The set was attention-grabbing and always
entertaining, and a good transition into Taylor’s
performance. The one misfit of the concert was singer-songwriter
Smog, who appeared between the readings and Sinclair’s set.
“I guess I’m the only poet who remembered the bring my
guitar,” he said when he came onstage. While his quiet,
sparse songs didn’t fit in, they were an enjoyable part of
the concert that attested to the variety of the lineup over the
course of the festival. He didn’t say much during the
performance, but his dark and introspective songs also revealed an
ironic side, with lyrics like “Dress sexy at my funeral, my
good wife, for the first time in your life.” It was Cecil
Taylor that people were there to see, however, and his set
certainly pushed boundaries. It’s a good thing someone out
there is testing the limits, but his music wasn’t musical
enough, it seems, for even most of the All Tomorrow’s Parties
crowd.