Silent Tongues, a superb album of six pieces for solo piano, was recorded by Cecil Taylor at the '74 Montreux Jazz Festival. Had not Arista recently bought the American distribution rights to the British Freedom label, it is doubtful whether the American jazz audience would have been exposed to this music at all. It's been about 15 years since Taylor has had one of his recordings released here by a major label. The Taylor album is one of seven Freedom sets recently released (some of which have been available in Europe for some time).

Of the seven sets, Cecil Taylor's is the masterpiece. Like a polychromatic and brilliantly organized collage, Taylor's music tells a story the same way it is relived in human memory, in patches and flashes instead of straight narrative. "Abyss (First Movement)" draws the listener with ponderous tentacles of notes into a roiling stew of deeply personal statement, sometimes jagged and declamatory, sometimes melodic, bluesy and cathartic. The solo piano has been thoroughly rediscovered by a younger generation of musicians—Jarrett, Corea, Tyner—but it is a form that Taylor never abandoned in the first place. And Silent Tongues brings to light a humor and playfulness I haven't heard before in Taylor's playing, to be found here in the two short encore numbers demanded by an obviously adoring European audience. A bravura performance by an artist at the peak of his potency.

Two more of the Arista/Freedom releases stand out. Randy Weston's Carnival was also recorded at Montreux '74. Pianist Weston, long an experimenter in the rhythms and modes of diverse black cultures, here takes on a funky Caribbean tone backed by reedman Billy Harper and Don Moye, the percussionist from the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Weston's tender-hearted solo tribute to Duke Ellington is the centerpiece of an excellent set and the ensemble piece "Mystery of Love" moves well and is redolent of its African influence. The late alto astronaut Albert Ayler is the leader of a 1964 session here titled Vibration. With the expert aid of trumpeter Don Cherry, Ayler makes sublimely beautiful explorations into two versions of his "Ghosts" theme, evocative of the sentimental, gentle spirits that Ayler was able to conjure for his more thoughtful listeners. A great treat for the Ayler fanatic and a fine introduction to his world for the uninitiated.

The rest of the set is also worthwhile. Paper Man is a relaxed 1968 date under trumpeter Charles Tolliver with Herbie Hancock and Gary Bartz, very much in the mainstream of its era but fun to listen to. Flexible Flyer is a 1974 recording by composer/trombonist Roswell Rudd with the rubber voice of Sheila Jordon acting as another instrument in the ensemble sound. Fresh and intelligent, Jordon is a superior vocalist with a unique voice that sounds great when meshed with the sonorities of the trombone.

Gato Barbieri and the African pianist Dollar Brand team for the 1968 Confluence and the results are somewhat on Brand's side in an only partially successful album. The same goes for Marion Brown's Porto Novo, a 1967 blowing session that finds reedman Brown with decent Dutch musicians that didn't quite have what it took to stay up in the ionosphere with Marion.

The Arista/Freedom series is a major step for this music. Someone very wisely realized that if the avant-garde of any art is stifled, the rest of the art suffers and dies. This release is good preventive medicine. (RS 187)

STEPHEN DAVIS