The Last Dance (Dominic Duval and Cecil Taylor album)

The Last Dance is a live album by bassist Dominic Duval and pianist Cecil Taylor recorded during the San Francisco Jazz Festival on October 30, 2003.

[1] Writing for The Village Voice, Francis Davis called the album "one of the great pianist's most totemic recorded works," and commented: "the pleasure here is vicariously tactile — you feel those extended runs of Taylor's (they gather momentum and then stop short, like waves cresting without splashing the shore) throughout your entire body, starting in your fingers.

As if conceding no ground to Duval, he positions himself in the bass clef for much of the performance, and his attack is so brutal that during the few moments of silence, you can still hear the piano's wood vibrating.

"[2] In a review for Point of Departure, Ed Hazell wrote: "No pianist has as many ways to touch a piano as Taylor, every nerve twitch in his fingers seems directly wired into an expressive intent.

At times it's a melancholy effect and the music often has a tragic grace... Duval... is finely attuned to Taylor's mercurial ways.