Chris Taylor: Nocturnal (2011)

GLENN ASTARITA,

Glenn Astarita

Senior Contributor since 1997

Longtime contributor to AAJ and Downbeat, Jazz Review, EjazzNews, Radio DirectX.

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Published: August 15, 2011

Track review of "You Know What I'm Saying"

New York-based virtuoso Chris Taylor spent 30 years behind the scenes as a session guitarist amid works for TV and various electronics-centered persuasions. Here, the artist steps out of the pocket for his freshman solo stint, supported by a distinguished roster of jazz-fusion artists performing on select tracks.

Taylor's influences seem varied, and his impressive compositional pen parlays a complement to his guitar expertise. Featuring precision-oriented theme building, loose groove dialogues and flourishing arrangements, Taylors merges fury, muscle, and tenderness into an articulate set of propositions.

Taylor uses space as a vantage point on the Weather Report-tinged, "You Know What I'm Saying." He parlays a textural approach via meticulous phrasings, sonorous extended notes and spiraling single note flurries atop drummer Gary Novak's punishing polyrhythmic attack. With concise choruses, nascent movements and polytonal mosaics, topped off with knotty unison lines, keyboardist Scott Kinsey goes toe-to-toe with saxophonist Steve Tavaglione during the energized bridge section, consummating the piece with a temperate fadeout. Taylor's first album intimates an expansive plane of persuasive musical concepts, embedded with a multihued fabric of sound.

Personnel: Gary Novak: drums; Ric Fierabracci: bass; Steve Tavaglione: soprano saxophone; Chris Taylor: guitars, keyboards and programming; Scott Kinsey: keyboards.

Record Label: Abstract Logix
Style: Fusion/Progressive Rock