Saxophonist Paul Taylor’s considerable talents fall into the hands of multiple producers and collaborators on Hypnotic (Peak Records PKD 8505-2; 50:26), keeping the sporadically exciting album from developing a truly distinctive identity. Highlights abound, particularly performance-wise, as Taylor cruises and wanders wistfully on soprano over the dark undertones of “Flight 808,” and pipes through lean, cornered alto lines on the funky “Summer Park.” However, side concerns like the heavy breathing R&B vocals on “Sunshine” and slapping, cold programming on “PT Cruiser” can distract from the mission at hand. In spite of the packaging, Taylor proves versatile as well as sensitive, favoring piping, straight-toned soprano over the sappy flutterings of his contemporaries, and executing tight harmonies on both alto and soprano horns.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time