REVIEWS

Angel of the Presence

Three years ago the Manchester-born pianist John Taylor was turning heads in a trio with former Bill Evans bassist Marc Johnson and the great American drummer Joey Baron. Now Swedish bassist Palle Danielsson and British drummer Martin France are his partners on this sublime set, launched on an imminent UK tour.  Taylor’s proximity to the status of the Jarretts and Mehldaus, not to mention his late hero Bill Evans, has been a long time coming.  Though some predicted it decades ago, the broadening of the pianist’s vision and the further blossoming of his awesome techinigque has been a genuine middle-years breakthrough rather than simply a late reminder of overlooked mastery.  Taylor is more classical and impressionistic, less gregariously hook-orientated than Esbjorn Svensson or Tord Gustafsen, doesn’t convolute pop tunes like Brad Mehldau, reawaken standards like Keith Jarrett, or play with Herbie Hancock’s swollen-river imperiousness.  But he rebalances elements of all those qualities.  Steve Swallow’s busy Up Too Late has Taylor improvising in an episodic series of surging runs, all different, some starting very low and exploding into clustered treble rattles, some hinting at regular swing licks, some featuring two-handed dialogues like a piano duet.  Martin France’s snare tattoos, shimmery cymbal sounds and segues between waltzes and disguised fund, and Danielsson’s fluency and big sound sharpen Taylor’s reflectiveness in his own slow pieces, and Steve Swallow’s Vaguely Asian is another masterly example of entwined but distinct melody lines in full flight.  Two Kenny Wheeler tunes explore the pianist’s love of oblique resolutions that nonetheless sustain a song-shape.  This may even be a better Taylor trio than the Baron/Johnson one, and that’s saying something.
John Fordham, The Guardian, Friday January 6, 2006

... Having already released a hot contender for one of the jazz albums of the year even before January is out British pianist John Taylor has been staking the same claim for the 2006 gig lists as well.
Taylor is touring with the musicians who recorded Angel of the Presence – the Swede Palle Danielsson on bass and Martin France on drums.
Lately, Taylor’s jazz, classical, compositional, improvisational and listening skills seem to have fallen into some magical balance, with ideas streaming out of him so fast it seems a miracle that playing-partners can stay on his case at all.
Steve Swallow’s Up Too Late was less post-boppish than on the disc, wandering in and out of tempo, with softly spaced piano chords framing soft clusters of bass counterpoint.  Vaguely Asian opened with deep bowed bass against hustling drums, with surges of rocking piano chords punctuated by dead halts.  Everything dovetailed as if it had been ordained by some supernatural musical force, but it was completely free at the same time.  Very sophisticated music-making indeed.
The Guardian, Wednesday January 25, 2006

…In a group that demanded more than cursory attention, John Taylor proved once again how those British pianists with real class never stopped getting better. To a rippling touch and a warm lyricism he has added several layers of complexity, approaching each tune from different angles and building a variety of elaborate structures…
Ron Atkins, The Guardian

…The piece itself, with its pensive yet urgent line, seemed to reflect one of the outstanding characteristics of Taylor’s piano playing, his remarkable ability to be simultaneously assertive and yet infinitely delicate. His powers of invention, too are extraordinary.
Pete Martin, The Guardian

…Taylor played as if the piano were his orchestra, always intriguing and filled with sumptuous chords, groove-alerting cross-rhythms and nimble lines. His playing is strikingly original and immediate, as if the piano has revealed all kinds of secrets to him
that are kept from most other musicians…
Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen

…Taylor was recognizably the pianist from Azimuth - those light but commanding hands, that penchant for patterned modulations, that attention to the dynamics equally of the shortest of phrases and longest of solos and, above all, that careful balance between intellect and emotion…
Mark Miller, Toronto Globe

'Insight'

... This is one of contemporary jazz's great performers at work on his own, a beautifully-recorded album capturing an unaccompanied performance that any of the biggest international piano names in the music would be proud of... This is a beautiful solo statement by a very modest star.
The Guardian 2003

'Rosslyn'

...Taylor is a true original. He ma take his cue from Bill Evans's gentle ruminations and highly sophisticated ear for the less obvious chord, but Taylor doesn't sound a bit like him. In fact he sounds like nobody but himself, cliché-free, almost never falling back on the blues, creating moods which owe as much to classical and folk music as they do to jazz. The title track especially has that timeless folk melody feel to it.
Birmingham Post 2003

...Throughout, Taylor's avant-garde and classical touches are tempered by a humane care for melody, and his world-class partners - bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron - stimulate the pianist and the listener at every turn. This is a class act.
Billboard 2003

...Rosslyn will come as a shock to those who have not kept up with British pianist John Taylor over the past 40 years; It is one of the important piano trio recordings of the new millennium to date.
Jazz Times 2003

'Exits and Entrances'

...Taylor is an original, cliché-free thinker in all aspects of music, and the players respond to his ideas in highly inventive fashion... The analogy with contemporary classical music (and improvisation) rather than conventional jazz applies to many of the timbres, textures and idioms employed in creating its distinctive soundscape, and it demands concentration on the part of the listener. That effort is handsomely rewarded, though, in a beautifully recorded disc that also features new versions of two of the pianist's earlier works. 'Au Contraire' and the breezy, bustling 'Adios Iony'.
Jazzwise 2002

'Verso'

...Verso presents another trio of virtuosi, and all the material is composed by members of the group. De Vito is a remarkable singer, who can breathe life into lyrics and also scat with brilliant musicality. the title track is composed by all three and she scats all the way, with Taylor and Towner banging ecstatic rhythms on the wood of their instuments.There are bravura pieces - Taylor's 'Afterthought' - haunting laments - De Vito and Towner's 'L'ombre e la Gracia' - and sweetly passionate vocals - De Vito's 'Scugnizzeide'. It's an enthralling tour de force. Music Magazine 2000

... and in Taylor and Towner, De Vito could'nt have hoped to find more sympathatic partners. British pianist John Taylor is something of a national treasure and compliments De Vito's inherent musicality perfectly with his wonderfully fruity improvisations.
Classic CD 2000

Like Song, Like Weather'

...British piano virtuoso Taylor and the delicate and understated singer Norma Winstone have often recorded together in other bands - notably the long-standing chamber-jazz trio Azimuth, with trumpeter Kenny Wheeler - but this is the first time their remarkable empathy and knack for creating space and depth with the most sparing materials has been delivered in such an exposed and focused way.... For imaginativre expansion of the jazz singer/piano relationship whilst preserving a mood of spontaneous ease, it's quite something.
Guardian 1999

'How it was then ... Never Again'

...Kenny Wheeler , John Taylor and Norma Winstone are all improvisers who trancend catagories, and ther's a special magic about the way that the instuments complement Norma Winstone's exceptional voice.
Jazz UK 1995

'You Never Know'

... Peter Erskine has also gone on to grace the various groups led by Kenny Wheeler and will shortly join Jan Garbarek on tour. Erskine says he had intended this trio to operate with few guidelines but found the tunes justified a tighter structure. As a result, barely a note is wasted throughout an album of constantly shifting textures, held together by the warm, mellow sound of Palle Danielsson's bass while John Taylor at the piano provides the melodic bite and, along with a Cole Porter ballad, the most substantial themes.
Guardian 1993

'Ambleside Days'

...Taylor's compositions - like the yearning Coniston Falls and the jig-like Clapperclowe - have the strength and clarity that gives this session much of its presence.
...Surman's baritone statement of the blustery theme of Scale force rattles along in low, rumbustious unison beside Taylor's charging piano and then becomes quietly, fragmentarily bluesy. Taylor's playing is a constant flow of fresh ideas and the interplay between the two is sometimes exultant.
Guardian 1992