[Dixielandjazz] Sam "The Man" Taylor was Sol Yaged!!! 88 today

[J. D. Bryce]

Sam "The Man" Taylor, who passed last week put out an extraordinary album in 
1957.  It was called "Blue Mist" and included 12 wonderfulk version of old 
ballads: Harlem Nocturne, As Time Goes By, Indian Summer, Don't Take Your 
Love From Me, the Very Thought of You and others.  It is just a wonderful 
record.  I later bought in on CD.

His sound was alternately brash, sensuous and lushly romantic on these 
ballads.  As a teen, I'd put on that record, turn down the lights, put my 
arm around some pretty young thing and let Taylor nudge us to heaven.  Aaah, 
the old days.

Back in the 1950s as Rock n Roll came in, teenage tenor guys like myself had 
several idols: King Curtis, Sam Butera, Sam Taylor and Boots Randolph. 
Curtis had this tight pecky sound backing up the Coasters on Yakety-Yak and 
others tunes. Taylor was the featured rock soloist with the Allan Freed 
Shows in New York.  Butera was changing the tenor sax world with his buzzing 
driving solos out of Louis Prima's Band and Randolph was ripping it up 
backing up Brenda Lee's up tunes.  His solos on Jambalaya are hot, and 
driving.

I hadn't known that Taylor played trad, but I'm not surprised.  He was a 
much better musician than peoiple gave him credit for being.  I'm saddened 
by his passing.

Jack Bryce
One of Sheik Littlefield's
DC Minions