Alan Taylor

Mick Taylor's self-titled debut album is rather different than one would imagine for an ex-Rolling Stone and former Bluesbreaker. As to whether this is due to the conformist sound of the lighter numbers ("Leather Jacket," "Baby I Want You," etc.) or the fact that his singing voice is so much more average than Jagger or Mayall's is debatable. In any case, Mick Taylor is an undeniably attractive and often surprising album. The highlight and thrust of the album is Taylor's astounding guitar playing. His fusion of blues and rock styles, and, of course, his slide guitar work, is constantly impressive. "Slow Blues," "Giddy-Up," and "Spanish/A Minor" feature some particularly gob-smacking guitar solos.

The Octet Broadcasts is made up of two BBC sessions from 1969 and 1979 respectively. Taken and mastered from the original analogue tapes by Gearbox, the album offers a snapshot of a time when British jazz was at another high, featuring such names as John Taylor, Alan Skidmore, Paul Lytton, and Art Themen, who themselves were contemporaries of and collaborated with the likes of Evan Parker, Michael Garrick, Ian Carr, and Roscoe Mitchell.

Cecil Taylor - The Great Paris Concert (1966) {Black Lion BLCD760201 rel 1994}
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© 1966, 1994 Black Lion | BLCD760201
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Free Jazz / Piano

By the time of his Paris concert, Cecil Taylor's quartet had reached a particularly high level of musical communication. Not only did altoist Jimmy Lyons (whose sound but not choice of notes was sometimes close to Charlie Parker's) find a place for himself in the dense ensembles, but one can hear him and the pianist/leader echoing each other's phrases in spots.

Released on LP in 1966, Cecil Taylor's Student Studies is an anomaly from his other recordings of the era. Not purely improvised, Taylor uses arranged sections and built-in segments for thematic and improvisational space. His meditations on short tonal studies and propulsive bursts of energy became signifiers of his later music. The band here, including Jimmy Lyons, bassist Alan Silva, and drummer Andrew Cyrille, registered with Taylor's fluid disciplinary approach to atonalism and dissonance, and found room to actually swing in. In fact, the influences Taylor spoke of most often during the era – Ellington, Bud Powell, and Mingus, can be traced here, if not heard outright.

Cecil Taylor - Unit Structures (1966) {Blue Note CDP 7 84237 2 rel 1987, Ron McMaster}
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© 1966, 1987 Blue Note / Capitol | CDP 7 84237 2
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Creative / Piano

One of a rare few albums done by pianist Cecil Taylor for the Blue Note label in the 60s – some of the most outside work recorded for the imprint at the time! The word "structures" here is perhaps a bit misplaced – as the work has a strong sense of freedom with the soloists – who operate based on a system of energy and impulses described by Taylor in the notes, at a level that's maybe one of his most inventive, ambitious expressions of the decade!

Cecil Taylor - Conquistador! (1966) {2004 Blue Note RVG Remaster}
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© 1966, 2004 Blue Note / Capitol | 7243 5 76749 2 8 | 24-bit remaster
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano

For the second of Cecil Taylor's two Blue Note albums (following Unit Structures), the innovative pianist utilized a sextet comprised of trumpeter Bill Dixon, altoist Jimmy Lyons, both Henry Grimes and Alan Silva on basses and drummer Andrew Cyrille. During the two lengthy pieces, Lyons' passionate solos contrast with Dixon's quieter ruminations while the music in general is unremittingly intense. Both of the Taylor Blue Notes are quite historic and near-classics but, despite this important documentation, Cecil Taylor (other than a pair of Paris concerts) would not appear on records again until 1973.

Ebo Taylor - Love And Death (2010) {Strut STRUT073CD}
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© 2010 Strut | STRUT073CD
Afro-beat / Afro-Pop / African Traditions / Highlife / West African

While Ebo Taylor's name is not familiar to most as one of the pioneers of Afro-beat, it should be. Taylor, the Ghanian composer, arranger, guitarist, and vocalist has been making music since the 1950s, and studied with Fela Kuti at the Eric Guilder School of Music in London from 1962 until 1965. Rather than go the solo path, he opted instead for Accra's studio scene, where he appeared on dozens of singles and albums . He cut a self-titled solo album in 1977 on the local label Essiebons. Tracks from it, another album entitled Conflict, and various singles have appeared in recent years on various European compilations. The Strut imprint, not content to let Taylor's name languish in obscurity, put its money where its mouth was, and paired him with the Afrobeat Academy of Berlin, which includes guitarist J. Whitefield of the Whitefield Brothers and various guests from Europe and Africa.

Cecil Taylor Ensemble - Always a Pleasure (1993) {FMP CD 69 rel 1996}
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© 1996 Free Music Production | FMP CD 69
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Creative / Piano

Recorded in 1993 during the Free Music Workshop in Berlin, this date features Cecil Taylor playing in a septet setting with a group of musicians who both point back toward some of the Cecil Taylor units of old and look ahead at the possibilities for a future ensemble employing numerous instruments, not only for color and variance, but also as force creators in Taylor's wave field. Old Taylor stalwarts like bassist Sirone and drummer Rashid Baker are tossed into a mix that includes tenor titan Charles Gayle, cellist Tristan Honsiger, and soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström, as well as French trumpet master Longineu Parsons.

A very special posthumous album featuring the one and only Philthy “Animal” Taylor, the maniac drummer who put the motor in Motörhead! The Little Villains project was founded by Taylor and UK-born guitarist James Childs (Airbus), who are joined on this album by ex-Hawkwind bassist, and Lemmy prodigy, Alan Davey!