Cecil Taylor Quotes

#1. I discovered very early that it wasn't quite enough for me to imitate people.

Cecil Taylor

#2. In short, [Coltrane's] tone is beautiful because it is functional. In other words, it is always involved in saying something. You can't separate the means that a man uses to say something from what he ultimately says. Technique is not separated from its content in a great artist.

Cecil Taylor

#3. Rhythm is the life of space of time danced through.

Cecil Taylor

#4. Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

Cecil Taylor

#5. Sometimes when it goes really well, you wonder, who's that at the piano?

Cecil Taylor

#6. Doesn't that fool know I recorded that song because I like it?

Cecil Taylor

#7. To feel is perhaps the most terrifying thing in this society.

Cecil Taylor

#8. I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes.

Cecil Taylor

#9. If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process.

Cecil Taylor

#10. The quality of life, values that go down to doin' that, that's the issue.

Cecil Taylor

#11. You must surrender whatever preconceptions you have about music if you're really interested in it.

Cecil Taylor

#12. To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra.

Cecil Taylor

#13. I understand about the relative strengths of people, and I don't think people have to be anything. They can be nothin' if they want to be.

Cecil Taylor