John Taylor, Marc Johnson, and Joey Baron (photograph © Diana Taylor, courtesy of ECM Records)
My most recent encounter with jazz pianist John Taylor, who died on July 17, 2015, took place at the end of March of last year, when ECM reissued the debut album of the British jazz trio Azimuth with a self-titled album. The Azimuth album marked the beginning of his relationship with ECM, which has now marked his death with another trio album, Tramonto, to be released this coming Friday. On this album he performed with Marc Johnson on bass and drummer Joey Baron. The tracks were recorded live in January of 2002 during a Contemporary Music Network tour. As many (most?) readers will expect, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for processing pre-orders.
The album has five tracks filling a little less than 55 minutes. The shortest track, a little over eight minutes in duration, bears the name of the album title. This is followed by the longest (and last) track, “Ambleside,” described in the advance material as “a 15 minute epic of rapidly changing moods.” (Since my own serious listening to jazz began with John Coltrane, it was hard for me not to raise my eyebrows at that use of “epic!”)
That said, Tramonto, when taken as a whole, offers up an engaging journey of invention. As is often the case, I found myself particularly drawn to Johnson’s bass work. I suspect that his own capacity for extended improvisation had its roots in his prior work with Bill Evans. One may say the same about his interplay with Taylor’s piano work.
The question is: Will future listenings take me back to Taylor’s albums, or will I be more likely to revisit my experiences with Coltrane and Evans?
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