Burning Ambulance Music is proud to announce a stunning archival release of previously unheard music by legendary pianist Cecil Taylor and his 14-piece Orchestra Humane.
At Iridium 2004, to be released exclusively on Bandcamp on July 3, 2026, documents 14 sets recorded over six nights between March 23 and 28, 2004, including two sets performed on Taylor’s 75th birthday. Each set consists of a single piece of music — the shortest running 53 minutes, the longest 79 – for a total of over 16 hours of music. The first three nights (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and the last night (Sunday) feature two sets each; on Friday and Saturday, the orchestra performed three sets nightly.
After many years working solo or with small groups, Cecil Taylor (1929-2018) assembled a large ensemble, the Sound Vision Orchestra, for a single epic performance at New York’s Knitting Factory in 2002. The success of that event inspired a new phase in his restless creativity, and he teamed up with some of the members of that group, including brass players Stephen Haynes, Taylor Ho Bynum and Amir ElSaffar, bassist Dominic Duval, and drummer Jackson Krall, to build himself a big band. That group, dubbed Orchestra Humane but later renamed the Ubuntu Orchestra and the AHA! Orchestra, performed annually at the Midtown Manhattan jazz club Iridium between 2003 and 2008. Many of the sets were preserved by filmmaker and engineer Robert O’Haire, but other than some rehearsal and performance footage in director Christopher Felver’s 2010 documentary Cecil Taylor: All The Notes, this music has survived only in the memories of those who played it and those who were there… until now.
The music on At Iridium 2004 is colorful and ever-changing, with each set completely different from the others. Some are hushed and ritualistic, while others are marathons of free jazz blare. The complex and thoughtful dialogue between horn sections is bolstered and fueled by Taylor’s lyrical and emphatic piano, as the bass and drums punctuate and propel the music.
Like Anthony Braxton’s Quartet (England) 1985 (a 2025 Burning Ambulance Music release), At Iridium 2004 is a digital-only set available exclusively on Bandcamp. The music has been mixed and mastered by Kurt Gluck, and it will include a digital booklet with liner notes by Burning Ambulance co-founder and Taylor biographer Philip Freeman, and cover art and design by I.A. Freeman.
Burning Ambulance Music 