Akisakila

Akisakila
Live album by Cecil Taylor
Released	1973
Recorded	May 22, 1973
Genre	Free jazz
Length	81:44
Label	Trio Records (Japan)
Producer	Kuniya Inaoka & Takafumi Ohkuma
Cecil Taylor chronology
Indent (1973) Akisakila (1973) Solo (1973)

Akisakila is a live album by Cecil Taylor recorded at Koseinenkin Dai-Hall, in Tokyo in May 1973 and originally released on the Japanese Trio label as a double LP. It features a performance by Taylor with Jimmy Lyons and Andrew Cyrille.

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic

The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek states "The early '70s was Taylor's most articulate period of his method of propelling dynamic energy forth into conical spirals of harmonic mystery and danger. While his music had dispensed with the notions of form and interval long before this, the simultaneous explosion of group energy reached its first zenith during this period... This date, though recorded a decade later, is a fine complement to Nefertiti, the Beautiful One Has Come".

Saxophonist Henry Kuntz wrote: "Taylor's music has less to do with the presentation of a particular piece of music (though there are certainly identifiable compositional interests) than it does with the total re-creation/transformation of the sound environment of the listener... The length of Taylor's pieces, their 'intensity,' is almost entirely directed toward breaking through the listener's defenses, to completely destroying, to the extent possible, the split between audience-performer. For as long as the music exists as something 'out there,' something able to be objectified, so one concentrates on it rather than simply experiencing it. The difference, it seems to me, is crucial. The former attitude approaches the music as a western linear 'art' form (able to be codified, commoditized, and finally commercialised) whereas the latter 'understands' and simply accepts the music as the organic improvisational sound ritual which it actually is... The music envelops, but does not overwhelm, the listener; it draws the listener into it, yet leaves space (even in its density) for the listener to exist within it. One may then enter into the musical expression rather than simply witness its realization."

Track listing

All compositions by Cecil Taylor.

1. "Bulu Akisakira Kutala, Part 1" – 40:42
2. "Bulu Akisakira Kutala, Part 2" – 40:59
   • Recorded in Tokyo, May 22, 1973

Personnel

• Cecil Taylor: piano
• Jimmy Lyons: alto saxophone
• Andrew Cyrille: drums