The Making Of Momentum Space

A week after [a performance at New York’s Iridium], Taylor entered Avatar Studios in New York with producer John Snyder, whose vision had shaped [his 1990 solo album] In Florescence. They were joined by tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman and drummer Elvin Jones for two days of sessions that would yield the album Momentum Space, released [in the US] in 2000. Although the cover credits all three musicians equally, Momentum Space is in fact a Dewey Redman album, with Taylor as sideman. Snyder had gotten a grant from the Creative Music Institute to make an album with an under recorded jazz musician of his choosing. “And I thought, well, shit, who is that? And then I thought, Dewey.”

Born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1931, Redman was best known for his work in Keith Jarrett’s and Ornette Coleman’s bands in the 1970s, though he had recorded several intriguing albums as a leader, including 1969’s Tarik for the BYG Actuel label and 1973’s The Ear Of The Behearer for Impulse!. In the late 70s and early 80s, he was part of the quartet Old And New Dreams along with fellow Ornette collaborators Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. But he had never achieved the same status as a leader as his peers, and by the 1990s was being overshadowed by his son Joshua, an emerging star signed to Warner Bros.

At dinner with Taylor, once the financing was secured, Snyder described the project and invited the pianist to participate. “I said, ‘I got this money to do a date with Dewey. Would you consider playing on it?’ And he said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean, no?’ And he said ‘No.’ I said, ‘Don’t you want to know how much?’ And he said, ‘I don’t want to play with Dewey… I don’t like his playing.’ I said, ‘Come on, Cecil. I mean, which part of it? You can’t just say you don’t like Dewey’s playing, it’s all over the place.’”

Taylor made a counteroffer: if Max Roach would play drums, he would participate. Snyder, who knew Roach, approached him with the offer, but the price was too high: the drummer wanted $25,000, which was half the budget for the entire project. So the producer made a few more phone calls, and before long he had a drummer.

“I went back to Cecil and I think we were having dinner again. And I said, ‘So I didn’t... I couldn’t get Max. He wanted $25,000.’ And he said, ‘Man, that sounds like him.’ And I said, ‘You’re one to talk.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m not doing it.’ I said, ‘Hold it a minute, I have something for you.’ And he said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Elvin.’ And he just looked at me wide-eyed and said, ‘Elvin?… I’ve never played with Elvin before.’”

The first day of recording was 4 April, at Avatar Studios. “We didn’t trust Cecil, of course, so I had a limousine pick him up the first morning. And he was there… He came and he was on time and I was like, wow.” Snyder set up Taylor’s Bösendorfer Imperial piano in a booth, and put Redman in another, with Elvin Jones’s kit set up in the studio’s main room.

The first day of recording was a success, but Snyder was wary. “When he went home that evening, I said, ‘Cecil, please don’t stay up all night.’ I said, ‘Please, we got one more day and we’ll get it. And that’ll be — we can party after that.’ I can not keep up with Cecil. There was no way you could keep up with Cecil unless you wanted to do what he was doing, and even then you’re going to crash at some point… But anyway, the next day the limousine guy calls and he says he’s not here, not at home… all I could do was hope.

“And so he did show up about 15 minutes late. And it was like, OK, he’d been up all night… but Cecil could do that. He had that incredible sustainability, if that’s what you wanna call it. But he said, ‘I’m not listening to Dewey today.’ I said, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, ‘I’m turning him off in my headphones.’ I said, ‘You can’t do that — it’s his record.’ He said, ‘I don’t like the way he plays. I like the way Elvin plays.’ I said, ‘I think Elvin likes the way you play, too, Cecil. But what’s that got to do with this? You got to play. It’s a trio record.’ And that’s what he did, because I tested his headphones during the break. Dewey was all the way off.”

There are in fact only two full trio pieces on Momentum Space: the opening “Nine”, a very Ornette Coleman-ish melody written by Redman, and “Is”, a 21 minute conclusion to a trilogy that begins with the piano solo “Life As” and continues with the piano/drums duo “It”. “Bekei” is a drum solo; “Dew” is a saxophone solo; and “Spoonin’” is a sax/drums duo. But the album as a whole is a brilliant 60 minute suite of music that showcases all three players at the height of their powers.

The trio never played live, but in September 1999, as part of a week long residency at the Blue Note club, Jones invited Taylor to play together as a duo. Reviewing the second show for The New York Times, Ben Ratliff wrote that “Where Mr Taylor courts and sometimes communes with chaos, Mr Jones is all graceful, heavy stabilisation. It was a hummingbird meeting a polar bear.” He also pointed out an important but frequently overlooked transition, writing that Taylor “turned 70 this year, and the quality of his energy has recently started to change. He never was all fireworks: he has a romantic side, too, and he seems now to spend more time playing ballad-like ideas, which protects not only his stamina but his competitive edge as well. Many pianists have incorporated the frenetic Cecil Taylor into their style, but nobody can replicate his bittersweet, contemplative chords, his delicate touch, the way he makes notes come as close to bending as the piano will allow.”

In The Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music Of Cecil Taylor is reviewed by Dave Mandl in The Wire 485. Wire subscribers can also read the review plus Phil Freeman’s 2016 Wire interview with Taylor via the digital magazine library.

The book is now available to pre-order from Wolke Verlag.