¡digital disinter! 002: Pan fresco

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(Front cover oil painting by 

El Marinero Turco)

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Online English Translation 
bu Chris Andrew

¡digital disinter! 002: 

When Cecil Taylor journeyed to the after-ether, social media feeds populated posts at automated speed with photos, music clips, and other references to his seminal work and life as pianist. I went to the two resources at hand, my copy of Cecil Taylor by César Aira and the world wide web. And so I retrospectively join the masses.

My first and only exposure to the Long Islander had been through the lenses of Aira and El Marinero Turco (The Turkish Sailor). Perusing through the author's fictionalized anecdote of Cecil Taylor, the lines kept a literary register that flows with both Taylor's free jazz and the images commissioned by El Marinero Turco. The book proffers a coercive, dense, and triune experience- a dignified home-style wake for the passing.

Digging deeper, I searched for El Marinero Turco, the individual behind the oil painted cover and the vignettes of linograph prints throughout the book. Clicks upon clicks and a Billy the Kid graphic novel came to my attention.

More info (in Spanish)

El Marinero Turco was born in New York but grew up in Rosario, Santa Fe Argentina from 10 months onward.  As a filmmaker, saxophonist, and determined autodidact, one peculiarity is his esteem for Lester 'Prez' Young. In the same timbre of the Cecil Taylor book, El Turco's antecedent to it, is found below- "The False Rivalry of Coleman Hawkins & Lester Young" scanned from the Argentine magazine Revista Fierro's second stint (Fierro is a creole reference to iron, but also to what is Argentinean, to courage, and/or adventure– my translation– also can refer to a gun like Billy is holding here to the right). During the search for the copy of Fierro containing the lino print comic strip, I was able to look into Prez on the inter-webs.

Faithful to my rhythm, I have been rabbit holing into jazz since Taylor's death. The most recent revelation was an alignment in the cosmos, the piece that brings this disinter together. LA saxophonist and producer Sam Gendel out of Los Angeles has a stout repertoire of work worth checking out (https://www.samgendel.com). In my mind, the aesthetic of his solo material conversed with Turcos illustrations and Aira's later narrative work- post 2002- in that it pokes at key elements of the art and trade it belongs too, whileit subverses it at the same time; in so far as to create a fresh sonorous continuum. Finally, I stumble into Gendel's album that takes a massive wink at 'Prez' himself and phrases in its own form, joining the ensemble of César Aira, El Turco Marinero, and Cecil Taylor. Click the Fresh and disinter forth!