No surprise
that guitarist Martin Taylor was voted Best Guitarist by the British
Jazz Awards for the 11th time. Pat Metheny, no slouch himself
on the instrument, describes Taylor as “one of the most
awesome solo guitar players in the history of the instrument.”
Martin
Taylor, a self taught guitarist who first came to public notice
substituting in Stephane Grappelli’s trio, has been quietly
wowing peers, pundits and audiences for the better part of four
decades. And what he does so well now takes him everywhere in
the world, including Montreal for the occasion of Guitarmania,
the precious 3-day mini-guitar festival that takes place inside
the huge Montreal
International Jazz Festival.
As a
measure of Taylor’s legendary range and accomplishment,
he has collaborated with the likes of Yehudi Menuhin, Didier Lockwood,
George Harrison and Dionne Warwick, to mention a few. And where
ego often conspires against a musician’s development and
decision making, Taylor, like Joe Pass, is equally comfortable
sharing the spotlight with other guitarists, such as the amazing
Tommy
Emmanuel, or providing musical accompaniment for
up and coming artists. For the past couple of years Taylor has
been playing behind and recording with singer Alison
Burns whose reputation continues to lag behind
her natural abilities.
For his
precious solo concert in Montreal, Taylor’s insights and
highly personal take on especially the standards snuck up on the
audience like an unexpected gratification, in part, because his
second to none technical ability is initially so distracting.
The obvious comparison and the touchstone against which all jazz
solo guitarists are judged is Joe Pass. But Taylor’s bass
lines, that incorporate back thumbing, are more complex, his melodies
more developed, on top of which he’s throws in for balance
and forward momentum a solid foundation of two and three note
chords that either support the melody or meld the major chord
changes.
The first
five minutes of any Martin Taylor performance are guaranteed to
produce awe and incredulity, the kind evoked by the master flamenco
guitarists. But Taylor, before deciding on a particular standard,
obliges himself to rethink it in order to discover what remains
to be said about it, which is why his work is always refreshing
and why we’re not surprised to learn that he is one of the
most imitated guitarists in the world. Despite a dazzling and
almost inimitable technique, Taylor simply refuses to puff up
or inflate a standard for the sake of originality that will strike
the refined ear like a false note. He might spend months working
on an interpretation such that his playing becomes so reassuring
and confident, and his melody lines often so hummable, that like
Bach’s, his music might register on the lazy ear as mechanical
or lacking in spontaneity. To that wild accusation, I say there
is more than enough of what is spontaneous and bad out there for
my entire hearing apparatus to turn into a red flag, that spontaneity
is merely one component of many in the production of music and
that it should never be confused with those self-conscious efforts
to be original.
When
as an audience, we’re lucky enough to be in the presence
of music that rings true and novel, it is because during its conception,
the spontaneous invention that went into its making has already
been fused into the song’s primary structure. When they
say that he or she owns a particular standard, as Sinatra owns
“I’ve Got You Under my Skin” or Chet Baker owns
“My Funny Valentine,” it’s because their inventiveness
has transformed the original material into something of themselves,otherwise
known as style, where one’s art and world view are one and
the same. Listen to Martin Taylor long enough and you’ll
find yourself returning again and again to an imagination with
which very few guitarists in the world can compete, where the
technique, no matter how incomparable, is merely the means to
say what he has to say.
All this
was brought to bear during Taylor’s solo Montreal Jazz Festival
concert when, as he explained it, after a lengthy period in which
he didn’t touch the guitar, he was finally able to write
and play a composition for his son who died in his early 20s --
a piece whose technique was completely subsumed by the feelings
this master guitarist made issue from his instrument.
To find
out what audiences and critics have embraced in both the art and
the person of Martin Taylor, check the video below.
