The Owner of the River Bank

In September 2000, Cecil Taylor spent nearly a week with the the Italian Instabile Orchestra, a 17-member group that had brought him in to celebrate their tenth anniversary as a unit. Because they were an existing group with their own methods and philosophy, rather than an ad hoc conclave of individual players, The Owner Of The River Bank is different from any other large ensemble Taylor work. For one thing, Instabile already had their own pianist, Umberto Petrin, who took part in the performance — there’s even a four-handed passage at one point, both players echoing and mirroring each other beautifully. Recognizably Taylor-esque melodies and collective chants are heard, but the music has the density of big band charts, punctuated by frequent orchestral flourishes. The drums and tympani roll like thunder. There are few solos; instead, groups of horns call back and forth to one another, and Taylor anchors the music without dominating it. It’s a striking achievement, a concerto that sounds like nothing else in Taylor’s catalog while remaining unmistakably his work.