Jazz Articles about David Taylor

John La Barbera Big Band: Grooveyard

by Jack Bowers
September 27, 2023

Composer/arranger John La Barbera has been at the top of his game for more than half a century, and Grooveyard is simply another example of his undiminished artistry. Besides arranging everything--superbly, as always--La Barbera wrote six of the session's ten charming songs, escorting other treasures by Carl Perkins, Dave Brubeck, Curtis Fuller and Elvin Jones. As he writes his handsome and colorful big-band charts, La Barbera is always careful to observe Rule No. 1: they have to ...

The John La Barbera Big Band: Grooveyard

by Nicholas F. Mondello
August 20, 2023

The geometry, if you will, of a terrific big band recording is such that the three major elements--the players, the arrangements, and the performance--balance in every regard. Grooveyard from the John La Barbera Big Band is such an offering. The album features ten masterfully selected, arranged, and performed selections, each containing outstanding section, solo, and ensemble playing. Wes Montgomery's “Grooveyard" launches a hip, swinging first course in which tenor man Pat La Barbera and guitarist Brandon Coleman ...

David Taylor-Steve Swell Quintet: Not Just...

by AAJ Staff
January 25, 2006

By Safford Chamberlain

The names of Billy Bang and Ken Filiano will be familiar to many listeners, and Steve Swell has all the chops, though not the reputation, of a Carl Fontana, to whom he may have listened. What Not Just... most resembles is modernist classical music--Bartok, Stravinsky, Berg, Schoenberg--not just in the overall sound, but also the feeling, the seriousness of what David Taylor, Swell and company do.

Free improvisation can be egotistical and self-indulgent. There is no trace ...