Jazz Articles about Chad Taylor

About Chad Taylor

Album Review

John Blum / David Murray / Chad Taylor: The Recursive Tree

Read "The Recursive Tree" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
July 14, 2024

Three equally potent partners combine in a spontaneous and intense outpouring on The Recursive Tree. Neither reedman David Murray or drummer Chad Taylor require much introduction. Murray has been a colossus on the scene ever since he first erupted onto the stages of lofts across Manhattan back in 1976. Taylor has become increasingly ubiquitous, recognized as one of the finest drummers of his generation, as evidenced by his tenure with saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, bassist Eric Revis and late trumpeter ...

Album Review

John Blum, David Murray and Chad Taylor: The Recursive Tree

Read "The Recursive Tree" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
June 8, 2024

After maintaining an almost impossibly prolific recorded output during the 1980s and 1990s (with over fifty releases in the 1990s alone), saxophonist David Murray eased up considerably in the 2000s, leaving his fans wondering if he might ever return to his earlier fecundity. Although it would be unrealistic to expect the veteran tenorist to approach the manic intensity of his first couple of decades, it does seem as though he is once again finding his stride, energized to some degree ...

Album Review

Luke Stewart Silt Trio: Unknown Rivers

Read "Unknown Rivers" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
May 25, 2024

Bassists in the jazz world frequently have to toil in the trenches for years, building their resumes in fits and starts as they gradually establish themselves, commonly hidden (figuratively and literally) behind the players up front who get most of the attention and credit. Luke Stewart is an undeniable exception, having enjoyed a mercurial rise to prominence since 2017 in outfits like Irreversible Entanglements, Heroes Are Gang Leaders and his own ensembles, not to mention a host of other projects ...

Album Review

James Brandon Lewis: For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)

Read "For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
April 22, 2024

La musica di James Brandon Lewis è potente, assertiva, trascinante. Ma rivela talvolta, sotto lo strato di forza, una sottile e affascinante vulnerabilità emotiva, che rende ancora più ricco il suo discorso compositivo e solistico. Come nel caso di questo scintillante omaggio al mondo espressivo di Mahalia Jackson, che si realizza attraverso memorie familiari, quelle della nonna che ha trasmesso a James questa passione tuttora bruciante. Lewis è una delle voci più convincenti del jazz contemporaneo che non ...

Album Review

Angelica Sanchez - Chad Taylor: A Monster Is Just An Animal You Haven't Met Yet

Read "A Monster Is Just An Animal You Haven't Met Yet" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 2, 2024

Angelica Sanchez and Chad Taylor's collaboration on the album A Monster is Just an Animal You Haven't Met Yet is a serendipitous blend of jazz's past and future wrapped in a package so enigmatic that it might as well come with its own set of riddles. The duo, comprising Sanchez's deft piano work and Taylor's percussive wizardry, crafts a sonic landscape as unpredictable as a weather forecast in the Bermuda Triangle.From the first note it is evident that ...

Album Review

James Brandon Lewis: For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)

Read "For Mahalia With Love (Expanded Edition)" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
February 22, 2024

Not since Oded Tzur's Isabela (ECM, 2022) has a comparably exalted tenor saxophone-led album come along, not until For Mahalia, With Love. Vaultingly great jazz and deep solace for the soul, For Mahalia, With Love was released in late 2023. An annual cycle for albums of this quality is actually a sufficiency, for there is enough in both these, and those that preceded them, to last a listener a lifetime. File next to John Coltrane's Crescent (Impulse!, 1964) and Albert ...

Album Review

James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia, With Love

Read "For Mahalia, With Love" reviewed by Pat Youngspiel

by Pat Youngspiel
December 12, 2023

Moving on chronologically from George Washington Carver--the African-American musician and influential agricultural scientist to whom James Brandon Lewis' previous recording with the Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms 2021), was dedicated--For Mahalia, With Love continues the pattern of paying homage to influential Afro-Americans who, in their own way, changed the course of history. This album's dedicatee is the early gospel queen Mahalia Jackson, whose seminal performances lit a spark in the saxophonist's grandmother; she in turn carried the spark ...