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John Taylor

John Taylor was born in Manchester (25th September 1942) and first came to the attention of the jazz audience in 1969 when he partnered saxophonists, Alan Skidmore and John Surman. He was later reunited with Surman in the short-lived group Morning Glory and in the 1980s with Miroslav Vitous’s quartet.

In the early 1970s, he was accompanist to the singer Cleo Laine and started to compose for his own sextet. John also worked with many visiting artists at Ronnie Scott’s club and later became a member of Ronnie’s quintet.

In 1977 John formed the trio Azimuth, with Norma Winstone and Kenny Wheeler. The group was described by Richard Williams as “…one of the most imaginatively conceived and delicately balanced contemporary chamber-jazz groups’. The trio made several recordings for ECM Records and performed in Europe, the USA, and Canada.

The 1980s saw John working with groups led by Jan Garbarek, Enrico Rava, Gil Evans, Lee Konitz, and Charlie Mariano as well as performing in duo contexts with Tony Coe and Steve Arguelles. Composing projects included a commission for the English choir Cantamus with Lee Konitz and Steve Arguelles and pieces for the Hannover Radio Orchestra with Stan Sulzmann.

John was a member of Kenny Wheeler’s quartet and large ensemble and performed in duo and quartet settings with John Surman .” Their recording of ‘Ambleside Days’ on ahum won critical acclaim. In 1996 John played organ on John Surman's choral work 'Proverbs and Songs' from Salisbury Cathedral, later released on ECM Records. During the 1990s he made several recordings also for ECM with Peter Erskine's trio with Palle Danielsson on bass. John Taylor’s elegant and resourceful piano playing has had a role to play in many ECM settings. All told in his career, he recorded 27 albums with ECM artists.

In 2000 John made a new collaboration with Azimuth and the Smith Quartet for the Weimer Festival. Also in that year he recorded 'Verso' with Maria Pia De Vito and Ralph Towner.

John celebrated his 60th birthday year in 2002 with a Contemporary Music Network Tour in which he presented his new trio with the drummer Joey Baron and Marc Johnson on bass. The tour also featured the Creative Jazz Orchestra playing John's composition 'The Green Man Suite'. In July 2002 John received the BBC Jazz Award for 'Best New Work' for this suite.

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Extended Analysis

A Supreme Love

Read "A Supreme Love" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Alan Skidmore is one of the finest saxophonists to come out of the United Kingdom, Europe or indeed anywhere. In fact, it was hearing Skidmore's tenor solo on “Have You Heard?" from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (Decca, 1966) that encouraged a young Michael Brecker to take up the instrument. Skidmore had also served his apprenticeship with blues singer Alexis Kornerin the sixties and by the end of the decade was equally well-versed in the blues and in the ...

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Liner Notes

Peter Erskine Trio: As It Was

Read "Peter Erskine Trio: As It Was" reviewed by John Kelman


The box set you hold in your hands features three players who came together in an exceptional group to play some of the most compelling and exploratory piano trio music of the 20th Century's final decade. This threesome, led by Peter Erskine, released four albums recorded between July 1991 and July 1997: 1993's You Never Know, 1994's Time Being, 1996's As It Is and 1999's Juni. That the drummer's critically acclaimed piano trio, also featuring Swedish double bassist Palle Danielsson, ...

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Album Review

John Taylor Sextet: Fragment

Read "Fragment" reviewed by Chris May


The not-for-profit Jazz In Britain label is one of the unsung heroes of British jazz. And if it is being sung, apologies, it deserves to be sung louder. While it is fitting that the musicians who make up London's new alternative jazz scene receive a massive shout out, the players who came before them, who paved the way for British jazz's current explosion, tend to get overlooked. Slowly, this is changing, and Jazz In Britain is in ...

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Album Review

Nucleus: Nucleus Live at the BBC

Read "Nucleus Live at the BBC" reviewed by Maurizio Comandini


Dio salvi la regina. E la BBC. L'emittente di stato britannica ha capito fin da subito che da quelle belle energie musicali, che spuntavano come l'erba di Hyde Park sotto al tiepido sole di quelle latitudini, passavano le scelte esistenziali e culturali delle nuove generazioni e sin dagli anni sessanta ha dato ampio spazio alla musica, premiando non solo il pop ma anche le proposte più articolate e di nicchia e ha conservato in archivio una buona parte di quelle ...

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Album Review

Norma Winstone & John Taylor: In Concert

Read "In Concert" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Una ristampa da non perdere. Questo concerto in duo di Norma Winstone e John Taylor dell'agosto 1988 esisteva in una rara edizione su cassetta del 1999 della Enodoc Records e documentava una performance estemporanea data alla Guildhall Music School di Londra. La Winstone e il suo marito d'allora (nonché partner negli Azimuth e in altri organici) avevano appena terminato un seminario e fu chiesto loro di offrire un concerto agli studenti. Tanto per rinfrescarci la memoria la performance ...

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Album Review

Alan Wakeman: The Octet Broadcasts 1969 and 1979

Read "The Octet Broadcasts 1969 and 1979" reviewed by Chris May


Despite a perception fostered by the more breathless media coverage given to the young lions who have emerged on the London scene since the mid 2010s, an identifiably British strand of jazz did not kick off when Shabaka Hutchings' Sons Of Kemet released its debut album in 2013. The groundwork was laid back in the 1950s by musicians such as saxophonist Joe Harriott and pianist Stan Tracey. In the 1970s, two bandleaders who carried the torch for ...

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Album Review

Norma Winstone & John Taylor: In Concert

Read "In Concert" reviewed by Roger Farbey


When John Taylor died on 17 July 2015, aged 72, the jazz world lost one its finest pianists. Over the course of his career he recorded with the likes of Arild Andersen, John Dankworth, Peter Erskine, Gil Evans. Jan Garbarek, Mike Gibbs, Charlie Haden, Lee Konitz, Enrico Rava, John Surman, Steve Swallow, Miroslav Vitous and Kenny Wheeler. He was also a mainstay of the British and European jazz scenes. Norma Winstone (aka “Britain's best kept secret") is one ...

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Review of his album "Rosslyn", 2003

"The British pianist combines a ruminative, restlessly probing manner with lightning changes of mood and tempo, where a sense of swing is never far away, however, cerebral things might sound. Incredibly, despite having recorded for ECM for 25 years, this is Taylor’s debut as a leader on the label. With such a lot of time to choose his musicians, Taylor has chosen well, and New Yorkers Marc Johnson on bass and Joey Baron on drums provide complementary foils for Taylor’s customary interplay of rhythm and rhapsody; Johnson was also a bassist to Taylor’s hero, Bill Evans, while Baron has the enviable ability, as Charlie Haden once said of Paul Motian, to make the drums sound like a musical instrument

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

A Supreme Love

Confront Recordings
2023

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Fragment

Jazz In Britain
2022

buy

The Octet Broadcasts...

Gearbox Records
2020

buy

In Concert

Enodoc Records
2019

buy

As it Was

ECM Records
2016

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