[Dixielandjazz] JAZZ REVIEW? Where is the music going?

[Steve barbone]

I'm on several automatic set-ups which send "jazz" articles to me. Note this
one below from the NY Times, Jazz Forum. I've never heard Lewis Taylor. Can
someone who may have, tell me if he is a jazz musician?

Cheers,
Steve


Songwriter, in U.S. Debut, Traverses Styles of the 70's - Forum: Jazz

Jazz Review | Lewis Taylor  NY TIMES - By JON PARELES - January 28, 2006

The only instrument Lewis Taylor played at the Bowery Ballroom on Thursday
night was his guitar; his band did the rest. It was a modest choice, since
on his albums he plays everything else, too, building lavish, eccentric pop
structures all by himself.

Although Mr. Lewis, who is British, has been making albums for 20 years,
Thursday's show was his first concert in the United States. It brought out
tenacious fans who yelled requests and sang along when one of his
meticulously assembled parts was missing from the live arrangements. (Mr.
Taylor cheated slightly; backup vocal harmonies were the ones he had layered
together in the studio.)

His demeanor was modest, too; he is just a slight, shaven-headed Englishman
who joked that his band was still trying him out. At one point, he
announced, "This is something that is a bit of an odd song."

Actually, they all were. Mr. Lewis is a throwback to the one-man studio
bands of the analog 1970's: songwriters like Todd Rundgren, Stevie Wonder,
Prince and Paul McCartney. He skews half a dozen once-disparate 1970's
styles to his own whims. Among them are smooth soul, psychedelia,
progressive rock and blues-rock, any of which might show up in the course of
songs that can change drastically between beginning and end.

One thing stays constant. Mr. Taylor sings about love and presents himself
as a man obsessed, regardless of whether things are going right or wrong. "I
should have realized, no matter what you do, that I would go on feeling just
the same," he sang.

He's equally obsessed with his chosen pop era. His set at the Bowery
Ballroom included versions of obscure songs by Funkadelic and Mr. Rundgren
(as well as Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein") and musical quotations from
Genesis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. There were also songs, or parts of
them, clearly modeled on Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Steely Dan and Earth,
Wind & Fire. When Mr. Taylor wants to plead gently for another chance or
slash through uncertainty with a guitar solo, he knows just what to do.

There have been British soul aficionados before, like the Average White Band
and Jamiroquai, who added little to their American models. What makes Mr.
Taylor different ‹ and better ‹ is that he's not content to stay within one
genre. 

As a pop craftsman, Mr. Taylor has reverse-engineered the music he loves:
not just to emulate it, but also to graft unlikely combinations. A pounding,
zigzagging prog-rock riff gave way to an aching ballad and a spiraling
wah-wah guitar solo; a pop love song detoured into chromatic chords or
started hopping upward, repeatedly changing key.

Mr. Taylor gave the audience a glimpse of his structures when he took
requests for songs he hadn't rehearsed, teaching chords to the band as he
sang. Yet even with their mechanisms revealed, Mr. Taylor's musical
stratagems were overshadowed by what comes so clearly through the songs: the
yearning of a man alone.