**** Cecil Taylor Ensemble

ALWAYS A PLEASURE

(FMP/North Country Distribution)

This latest installment of the Cecil Taylor story (recorded April 8, 1993, in Berlin) from the primo German avant-jazz label is exceptional on several counts. Tenor-saxophonist Charles Gayle may be the best possible replacement yet for the impossible-to-replace late Jimmy Lyons. Taylor obviously relishes interacting with Gayle's frantic energy in this live set. Even better is Longineu Parsons: hearing lengthy and well-developed trumpet lines dancing around Taylor's piano runs is an unexpected treat. Soprano-saxophonist Harri Sjöström tends to get a bit lost behind Gayle and Parsons, but the rhythm section of drummer Rashid Bakr, bassist Sirone, and cellist Tristan Honsinger is slashingly brilliant. The four-part suite (running about 75 minutes) sounds like an updating of Taylor's Blue Note recordings from the '60s, with the leader ecstatically zigzagging between pensive and restrained lyricism and gut-busting catharsis.

-- Norman Weinstein