By time pianist Cecil Taylor recorded in the mid 1960's, he no longer improvised on popular tunes.
By my reckoning, this performance of Richard Rodgers' "This Nearly Was Mine" in 1960 for Nat Hentoff's Candid Records was his next to last recording of a standard tune. After he recorded "What's New" in a live recording at the Cafe Monmartre in 1962, he mostly relied on structures that he invented for himself.
You've got to hear how gently Cecil starts with a gentle ringing single note line that occasionally melts into an occasional bluesy chord. And then how bassist Buell Neidlinger joins and starts a conversation that lasts throughout the entire tune.
The recitation of the melody is very slow. During the course of it Cecil introduces a blues colored accompaniment that he will continually elaborate upon throughtout the whole performance.
Dennis Charles doesn't establish the tune's waltz time for nearly two minutes and it takes almost as much time before the tune liquefies enough for Cecil to start using some of the explosive pianisms he's known for. He's very sly how he slips out of the main channel of the tune, into his own thing, and then back into the melancholy mood of the channel.
In one episode Cecil and Neidlinger unexpectedly double time and shoot down a side rapid together before gliding back into the slower moving stream.
In another, Neidlinger and Charles hold the time and Cecil ignites and throws off musical sparks like a lit sparkler for several moments at his own independent tempo before rejoining the others.
This trio is playing all kinds of wondrous games with this tune along it's 10 minute duration. I love hearing every second of it.
My Trusted MOGs
Your writing is so evocative I can almost hear the music even though Rhapsody is out of reach for me. Fortunately, the names do ring a bell as they say. Thanks