Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the inventors of free jazz. His music is some of the most challenging in jazz, characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing exceedingly complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. At first listen, his dense and percussive music can be difficult to absorb. His piano technique has often been likened to drums and percussion rather than to any other pianists and sometimes resembles modern classical music as well as jazz.