American musician and composer Cecil Taylor was BOTD in 1929. Born in New York, he attended the New York College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. Rejecting a classical career, he formed a jazz quartet with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, bassist Buell Neidlinger and drummer Dennis Charles, recording their first album, Jazz Advance in 1956. He combined virtuoso piano technique and classical discipline with a gift for improvisation, developing simple pieces into dense, complex pieces with violently fast tempo. Their appearance at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival was recorded in the album At Newport. In 1961, he began a long-term collaboration with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, touring extensively, and signing to Blue Note Records in 1966. Highly regarded by his peers, he remained relatively unknown to a larger audience until the 1970s, performing for President Jimmy Carter at the White House, and being awarded Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships. He recorded dozens of albums, recording and performing music into his 80s. He also composed ballet music for Dianne McIntyre and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and wrote and published poetry. In 1982, Taylor was outed as gay by jazz critic Stanley Crouch. Taylor responded angrily, telling a New York Times reporter: “Do you think a three-letter word defines the complexity of my humanity? I avoid the trap of easy definition”. Little is known about his personal life. He died in 2018, aged 89.