Cecil Taylor had begun his duo set with drummer Elvin Jones with a simple phrase from his right hand before the applause even died down, and continued in a soft staccato as Jones joined in on mallets. The pair muttered and grumbled along on their instruments for 68 minutes, Jones for the most part following the pianist, with a less than passionate familarity.

Right or wrong, greatness dictates that it's not always the quality of an individual performance that determines its importance. Taylor is arguably the last of the '60s Free Jazz greats still going full throttle, and as a member of John Coltrane's classic quartet, Elvin Jones deserves at least a bit of breathless awe, even if his work in the decades hence hasn't carried the same revelatory impact. Here they were, two massive figures sharing the stage. If it wasn't a match made in heaven, it was still one to behold.

It has been said that Taylor can think separately with each of his fingers, and when he plays solo or in a quieter setting, that description proves to be apt. His extrapolations are deeply logical, requiring focus on the part of both the listener and his collaborators. The phrases fly by so quickly that if you're not paying attention the first time, you won't recognize them the second. And when there's a dozen or more in the air at any moment, they can be easy to miss.

When his big band projects work, such as last year at the Knitting Factory, it's a projection of those ideas, his piano exploded onto a full orchestra of interpretation, advancing the demand beyond creator and audience to add performers to the school. Elvin Jones, however, isn't such an interpreter; he knows how to play with Cecil, but he doesn't know how to play Cecil. This night, then, became a solo concert with rhythm. Jones remained on mallets the entire evening, leaving Taylor, playing from a score, to explore themes that were deceptively beautiful, even joyous, and playing more rhythmically than he otherwise might. It's interesting to hear Taylor forced into restraint. Like his strangely subdued recording with Bill Dixon and Tony Oxley at the 2002 Victoriaville festival (released as Cecil Taylor/Bill Dixon/Tony Oxley on Victo), it was interesting, if imperfect, to hear Taylor anchored by slow, quiet playing.

Taylor has had stronger standing bands in the past than his current trio with Dominic Duval and Jackson Krall, but this trio is noteworthy for being the only standing group he's had since the demise of the great Feel Trio with Oxley and William Parker. Taylor's language is not easily learned, so the rewards of any of his groups grow with age and this one has booked close to a decade. Where Jones might know how to listen to Taylor's parlance, Duval and Krall can speak it.

From the opening notes of their set at the Knitting Factory, Duval showed he could play alongside the master. And since Taylor doesn't espouse a formal theory behind his craft (as do Anthony Braxton and Ornette Coleman), playing Cecil Taylor music is presumably learned by doing. Where the duo with Jones was a meeting filled with cautious hesitation and constant double-checking (the drummer rarely took his eyes off his partner), this was a convening. By the time Krall stepped in, they were truly a trio.

Krall played a huge set, a regular kit supplemented by three marching drums and two cone-shaped metal bells, each three or four feet long, suspended at the rear of the stage. While Duval would at times break pace, bouncing against Taylor's frenetic energy, Krall matched the master's energy throughout. That transfer of energy went both ways: against Duval and Krall, Taylor played harder and faster than he did at the Blue Note.

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether Duval and Krall can stand up to the Parker/Oxley trio, or to Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray for that matter. For 85 minutes they were in Taylor's sound world and that's a remarkable thing to hear.