A Tasteful Revolution
by ChrisAugust 10th, 2005 10:48 pm
A few hundred people will read this post. A tiny fraction of those people will download the tune I’m offering. A tiny fraction more will understand that what they are listening to is a revolution. I won’t go into details, as I doubt I’ll be able to convince any. The musician in question is pianist John Taylor and the album is Rosslyn. In my mind, Taylor’s musical conception is a revolution in serious American art music, though he is an Englishman. His music is the future and, I hope, the shape of jazz to come. His harmonic concepts and use of melodic development, are alone enough to give him the status of giant. His intensely creative and tasteful use of metric modulation in their employ, puts him on a whole new playing field and pushes the envelope of the jazz idiom. Taylor is a revolutionary in the mold of fellow pianist Bill Evans, in that the casual listener will never know that what they are hearing is a bold and dynamic step into the future. Subtle revolution is never an easy sell.
The tune is Irving Berlin’s How Deep the Ocean as performed by The John Taylor Trio. The personnel are John Taylor on piano, Marc Johnson on bass and Joey Baron on drums. Please do have a listen and consider buying John Taylor’s album Rosslyn. Play it for your kids and support the revolution and the revolutionaries. Download here.
Postscript: I wrote some of this in November of last year and recycled tonight. So sorry to repeat - I know it’s in bad form.
August 10th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
This lazy bastard just downloaded and is now listening to the song. Of course, since I’m a bit of a jazz novice, I’m not sure I’m hearing the right stuff. For instance, I haven’t a clue what metric modulation means…(something about meter, I suppose)
Oh yeah and I just had to note, “a bold and dynamic step into the future”. Yeah, bold and dynamic, like my pants!
August 10th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
Nothing like an inside joke.
August 10th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
You got a problem with that? ;) If I had any idea what exactly is bold and dynamic about my pants, I’d be thrilled to enlighten everyone. But since I don’t…
August 11th, 2005 at 12:45 am
We can only dream of the day when every man, woman and child is clothed in a pair of bold, dynamic pants. Until then, it’s nothing but trouble and toil and perhaps, if we’re lucky, a pair of fish pants.
August 11th, 2005 at 2:49 am
I’m listening to it too, Chris (thanks for the song), but don’t know enough about jazz to understand why it’s revolutionary. Are there any moments in the song that encapsulate what you’re talking about, or is it just the flow of the entire piece that moves you? How does this version differ from previous versions?
August 11th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Great questions Matt. It is throughout and it’s the use of time, or more specifically the use of metric modulation and polyrhythm - building time on top of time, subdivisions, pivots etc. It’s ussualy the stuff of drum geeks. Think of playing a half note triplet in four and then pivoting the band, or part of the band, so that the beat of the triplet is now the beat of the tune. Anyway, I’ll try to dig up some good resources and do something detailed when I get a chance.