Photograph of John Taylor by Tim Dickeson

R.I.P.  John Taylor (1942-2015)

I was both shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden death (on July 18th) of the great British pianist and composer John Taylor who suffered a severe heart attack when playing at the Saveurs Jazz Festival in Segres, France where he was appearing with bassist Stephane Kerecki’s group. I learned the tragic news from the London Jazz News website and thank Sebastian Scotney and his team for bringing it to my attention. LJN also includes an excellent tribute from fellow pianist Simon Purcell. Meanwhile Tony Dudley Evans of Jazzlines, Birmingham and Cheltenham Jazz Festival has written his own appreciation for Peter Bacon’s Jazz Breakfast website.

Further tributes have been pouring in for this world class musician and John Fordham has already written a full obituary for The Guardian so I do not propose to write a full history of Taylor’s brilliant career, one that saw him playing better than ever with the passing of the years.

A key figure on the UK jazz scene since the late 1960s Taylor was one of the few British jazz musicians to gain an international reputation, this helped in part by his long association with the Munich based ECM record label for whom he recorded many fine albums both as a leader of his own groups, as part of the trio Azimuth (with trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and vocalist Norma Winstone) and as a sideman with many leading European and American musicians, among them saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassists Arild Andersen and Miroslav Vitous and drummer Peter Erskine. More recently Taylor has enjoyed a lengthy association with the Italian Cam Jazz label for whom he has also recorded many excellent albums, including the sublime “Angel of the Presence” (2006), one of the very first albums I ever reviewed and one of the very few to garner a full five stars on The Jazzmann.

I have met many musicians through my work for the Jazzmann site. Unfortunately John was not one of them although I saw him perform live on many occasions, usually at major venues and festivals.  His playing was always exemplary and he exuded a scholarly charm with his relaxed stage presence. I remember with affection a quite inspired trio performance by Taylor, drummer Martin France and Swedish bassist Palle Danielsson at St. George’s in Bristol around the time of “Angel of the Presence”. This really was a superbly balanced group, at least the equal of Taylor’s “American” trio with bassist Marc Johnson drummer Joey Baron that recorded the classic ECM album “Rosslyn”. I remember seeing Brad Mehldau’s trio at the same venue at around the same time and feeling that Taylor’s group was by far the superior.

Taylor always had a strong artistic relationship with saxophonist Julian Arguelles and appeared on Julian’s d?but solo album “Phaedrus” as far back as 1990. The pair played a brilliant duo set at the 2011 Cheltenham Jazz Festival and also recorded together again on such excellent 21st century albums as Taylor’s “Requiem For A Dreamer” and Arguelles’ “Circularity”. 

Ironically Taylor’s unexpected death came at a what was set to be a very busy and productive period for him with three album releases in the pipeline and a London Jazz Festival appearance scheduled for November. Shortly before Taylor’s passing I received a review copy of “Duets”, a brilliant set of duo performances with fellow pianist Richard Fairhurst due for release on the Basho record label on August 7th 2015. I still intend to carry out a full review of this superb album in the near future.

In itself “Duets” would represent a fine swan song from Taylor but there are also two other album releases imminent. The first is due on Cam Jazz in September and features Taylor’s music for a suite inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron”. The work was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to celebrate Taylor’s 70th birthday and was premi?red at the 2012 Cheltenham Jazz Festival by a hand picked octet that featured Arguelles on saxophone and Taylor’s two sons, Leo (drums) and Alex (guitar, vocals). Vonnegut’s writing had also provided the inspiration for the earlier album “Requiem For A Dreamer”.
In October Cam Jazz will release “On The Way To Two”, a previously unreleased duo session from 2005 that Taylor recorded at the famous Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg, Germany with his old friend Kenny Wheeler.

Taylor was also due to appear at the 2015 EFG London Jazz Festival with Stephane Kerecki, a performance that I had hoped to witness.
Together with Fairhurst he was also scheduled to be part of the Jazz Piano Summit at the Purcell Room in London on September 9th 2015. The event will now effectively become a tribute to Taylor with Fairhurst, Gwilym Simcock, Michael Wollny and a number of other leading pianists, many of them former students of Taylor, also due to appear. 

John Taylor has been taken from us far too soon but he leaves us with a rich catalogue of recorded work and with three farewell gifts to come, albums that will now be even more keenly anticiapated. Although I never met him I was genuinely upset by the news of Taylor’s passing, mainly because it was so totally unexpected and because he was a musician who was still very much in his creative prime. He will be sorely missed by family, friends and musical colleagues and by music lovers everywhere.

As well as being a superb musician and composer Taylor was also an acclaimed educator with teaching posts in the UK and Germany and many of the fulsome tributes that have been rolling in have come from former students, many of them now professional musicians themselves.

Rest in peace JT and thank you for all the wonderful music and memories.

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