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Art Taylor
From time to time he led his own bands, notably Taylor’s Wailers, and toured the States and Europe with Donald Byrd, and did a short stint with Thelonious Monk in 1959. Also in ’59 he was the drummer on John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” album, which speaks for itself.
He became resident in Europe in the early 60s, playing with visiting fellow Americans including Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin. During this period, Taylor began recording interviews with musicians, the results of which, often acutely angled towards the racial and political circumstances surrounding jazz, were first published in 1977 under the title Notes And Tones. In the mid-80s Taylor returned to the USA and hosted a radio show. His last studio session was with Jimmy Smith in 1995 for the excellent record “Damn!,” and the album was dedicated to his memory.
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Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached, 1957-1965
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Art Taylor was a jazz drummer whose name, sadly, rarely comes up these days. But starting in 1951, Art was in huge demand as a sideman and recording artist. Over the course of his career, according to the Jazz Discography, he recorded on 323 sessions, a sizable number. Nicknamed A.T., or, to those in the know, Mr. Cool, Art established a new, straight-ahead drumming style that was less scattered and more consistently intense, like a pot of water coming to ...
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