JAZZ pianist Cecil Taylor was swindled out of a prize worth about US$500,000 by a general contractor who befriended him while working on the house next door to Taylor’s in New York City, the prosecutor’s office said Tuesday.

    Noel Muir of Uniondale on New York’s Long Island faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

    Taylor, who is known for his improvisational, percussive style at the keyboard, was awarded a prestigious Kyoto Prize by Japan’s Inamori Foundation in 2013 and was invited to Japan to collect his prize at a ceremony last November.

    While in Japan with the 85-year-old pianist, Muir, 54, provided the Inamori Foundation with the details of a bank account to which it could wire the prize money, the statement said. A wire for US$492,722.55 arrived in the account two weeks after the ceremony.

    In fact, the account was under the name MCAI Construction, Muir’s company, the prosecutor’s statement said, and since then the account has been depleted.

    (SD-Agencies)