Peter Valente – författare

A major contribution to the study of all aspects of this jazz master, from his groundbreaking compositions to his performance style and poetry.Cecil Taylor (1929–2018) was one of the most influential pianists and composers in contemporary jazz. A pioneer as a leader/composer in the free jazz movement of the late '50s and early '60s, Taylor developed into a major voice in expanding jazz's harmonic and rhythmic languages. Through his career, he mentored and worked alongside other leading jazz stylists, including Steve Lacy, Buell Neidlinger, Jimmy Lyons, and Sunny Murray, as well as composed music for ballet and dance He also was a well-known poet whose work has been compared to Amiri Baraka's, among others. The World of Cecil Taylor contains essays from musicians who played with Cecil, jazz fans, academics, and critics, as well as in-depth essays on Taylor's poetry, photos, and interviews. Like one of Cecil's solos, the book is multivocal, with many nuances and changes in the rhythm. The World of Cecil will be a valuable resource for readers and scholars as an introduction and exploration of one of America's most original musical voices.

An ode to mad love, awarded the Prix de Flore in 1999.Published in 1999 and awarded that year’s Prix de Flore, Nicolas Pages marks a departure from the Sadean preoccupations of Guillaume Dustan’s first three novels; it is, in essence, a love story. Inspired by a failed romance with the Swiss artist-writer Nicolas Pages and collaging texts that Dustan initially produced for a wide variety of other occasions (magazine articles, short stories, project notes, shopping lists, and more), the “auto-/bio-/porno-graphic” prose of Nicolas Pages is by turns trashy and encyclopedic, corporeal and philosophical. Here Dustan inaugurates a “gay literature” that is no longer painful or shameful, but epicurean and cheerful without ever lapsing into idealism. A vibrant plea for gay rights and a tapestried text that is more than the sum of its many styles, Nicolas Pages is a call to explore the body, sexuality, and writing in all their variety; it is a hymn to life, humanity, pleasure, and desire.

A major contribution to the study of all aspects of this jazz master, from his groundbreaking compositions to his performance style and poetry.Cecil Taylor (1929–2018) was one of the most influential pianists and composers in contemporary jazz. A pioneer as a leader/composer in the free jazz movement of the late '50s and early '60s, Taylor developed into a major voice in expanding jazz's harmonic and rhythmic languages. Through his career, he mentored and worked alongside other leading jazz stylists, including Steve Lacy, Buell Neidlinger, Jimmy Lyons, and Sunny Murray, as well as composed music for ballet and dance He also was a well-known poet whose work has been compared to Amiri Baraka's, among others. The World of Cecil Taylor contains essays from musicians who played with Cecil, jazz fans, academics, and critics, as well as in-depth essays on Taylor's poetry, photos, and interviews. Like one of Cecil's solos, the book is multivocal, with many nuances and changes in the rhythm. The World of Cecil will be a valuable resource for readers and scholars as an introduction and exploration of one of America's most original musical voices.

An unusual collection of writing by and about mystic artist Harry Smith• Explores in depth the occult and mystical side of Smith—his “heaven and earth magic”—focusing on how his varied artistic efforts were part of a comprehensive magical and alchemical practice• Includes unpublished photos of and letters from Smith, rare interviews, one of his unpublished texts, and essays by scholars and friendsHarry Smith (1923–1991) was a legendary twentieth-century artist, filmmaker, painter, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, and archivist. Especially well known for his Anthology of American Folk Music, innovative abstract realms, and extraordinary collection of paper airplanes now housed at the Getty Research Institute, Smith also had a deep esoteric and mystical side, with experimentation in magic, Tarot, Kabbalah, and other occult practices. Like other alchemists, Smith’s life mission was to create a unified work from disparate elements, a synthesis of correspondences between seemingly unrelated topics—from music, string figures, and Seminole patterns to the relationship between sound and film imagery.Presenting the most diverse collection of writings about Harry Smith, this volume explores the far-ranging esoteric themes that run throughout his art and career. The book includes never-before-seen photos, rare interviews, personal letters, and an unpublished text by Harry Smith, The 96 Apparitions of the 96 Alchemical Formulae (1 to 36), as well as personal reminiscences from Smith’s friends and former students. Smith’s groundbreaking mystical wisdom, "heaven and earth magic," and influence as an artist of the extremes leap from the pages in this book, confirming his contribution to art, music, film, and modern alchemy.