Producer’s note: THE TRACKS ON THIS ALBUM ARE ALSO AVAILABLE AT BANDCAMP ON OBLIVION'S RELEASE OF "The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert at The Town Hall NYC November 4, 1973" (catalog #OD-8). The "Spring..." release is to keep the historical record intact.

This digital-only drop of “Spring of Two Blue-Js” is available of all streaming services. It is the first authorized release of the album, mastered from the original master tapes, since 1974. The vinyl LP was originally issued in early 1974 on Unit Core Records*, the personal label of Cecil Taylor. There were only 2000 records pressed. Every other release has been a bootlegged transcription from that pressing.

It is the second set of a live concert recorded on November 4, 1973 in New York City.
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Cecil Taylor is one of the three acknowledged leaders of the progressive, free jazz movement of mid-20th century America. To a lot of folks he just plays noise and they find it hard to believe this music is composed, no less played. Me, I’ve always found it exhilarating, tonic even. It’s often been compared to putting your head under a crashing waterfall, and I suppose that might be true, but many of you might also find that a cathartic experience.

In 1973 Cecil was 44 years old and had been part of a culture imposed jazz exile as a visiting professor at Anitoch College in Ohio and University of Wisconsin-Madison, when he burst back on the recording scene after a five year hiatus with the self-released Indent a live solo recording. All my fellow avant-garde followers were ectastic, played the record constantly on our radio shows, and started attending his now regular New York concerts. Somehow or other a since disappeared, a nice enough jazz hustler named David Laura showed up in my life with Emmett Chapman (inventor of the Chapman Stick) and before long he was claiming first to be friends with the world famous Cecil Taylor and soon enough, his manager. Yeah, sure.

Dave knew I was an aspiring record producer with a little access to recording equipment (harder to come by back in the day) and dragged me down to Washington DC to record Cecil at some fancy concert hall at the Smithsonian Institute. I guess he really was the manager. The two-track stereo recording turned out pretty well and before I knew it I’d rustled up a four track recorder and microphones (probably from my friend Mark Seiden) and dragged my fellow fan and roommate Nick Moy down to New York’s famous Town Hall. We were memorializing what was billed as a triumphant “return,” a two part show of solo piano and quartet sections, with loyalists Jimmy Lyons on alto saxophone and Andrew Cyrille on drums (I later recorded solo records of Andrew too), and the newly added Sirone on bass). It was pretty nerve racking for me –I was a completely self taught “engineer,” who’d never recorded before on four track– but it was a magical night. The Unit was on fire, nothing went wrong with the recording, and when I later mixed it at New York’s Generation Sound under the watchful guidance of legendary engineer Tony May, I was certain we had something special.

Cecil funded a 1974 release of Spring of Two Blue-J’s on his Unit Core Records, Dave handled the manufacturing and “distribution” (maybe a bit of an overstatement) of 2000 copies. (Unit Core had only one previous album, a solo Cecil performance, “Indent”, subsequently reissued on Arista/Freedom. “Spring…” was the second and final Unit Core release.) Before any of us knew it the Village Voice’s Gary Giddins had named it Cecil’s finest recording in the Village Voice (and 29 years later he said “it offers an improvisational coherence his earlier work only hints at…”). It sold for $6.00US.

Unfortunately, as was often the case during this era of artist “independence” in the area of record releases, the record went out of print after that first pressing. My impression since is that Cecil had, in many ways, become more of a performance artist than a recording artist (with dozens of released recordings in direct opposition to that thesis); individual albums, not to mention managing the business of a record company, were completely beside the point for him. David Laura completely disappeared (I didn’t hear any pleasant stories as to how) and I lost touch with Cecil (we last crossed paths in 1982 coming out of Mad Max: The Road Warrior, which not surprisingly, he loved). I’m not sure if he remembered I’d recorded Blue-J’s or if he had any idea I still had possession of the original four-tracks; he certainly didn’t acknowledge it. 

All that said, Spring of Two Blue-J’s is a career highlight for Cecil Taylor in many ways.
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For more on the entire story behind the recording, you can read this essay written by Alan Goodman for the release of the complete, legendary, live recording. bit.ly/CompleteReturn