Martin Taylor (guitarist)

Early life

Taylor was born in Harlow, Essex, into a family with a musical heritage and a gypsy/traveller tradition, although he did not strictly lead the traditional gypsy lifestyle. At the age of four he received his first guitar from his father, jazz bassist William 'Buck' Taylor. His father, though only taking up music at 30, later frequently played the music of the Quintette du Hot Club de France and Taylor became inspired by their legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt. At age eight he was playing regularly in his father's band and at 15 he quit school to become a professional musician.

At the age of 15 Martin joined the band of Lennie Hastings a highly respected jazz drummer who spent many years with the Alex Welsh band. Lennie, although famous for his cod-German routines as Herr Lennie Hastings. complete with irish (wig) and penny monocle was an extremely talented drummer. He had left the Welsh band and tried to make a go of it with his own band in 1973. The band attracted many fine musicians like Nick Stevenson (trumpet), Peter Skivington (bass guitar), Ron Brown (trombone) and Jamie Evans (piano). Lennie was able to attract high calibre guests like George Chisholm, Beryl Bryden and others. Although the band only lasted for less than a year, Martin (driven to gigs by his father Buck) has said that he learned a lot during that period and has many happy memories of playing with the Oo-Yah band (as it was often known).

Over the next few years Taylor played in numerous bands, holiday camps, radio dates, and cruise ships (one cruise led to playing with the Count Basie orchestra). Performing dates in and around London soon brought him into contact with jazz guitarist Ike Isaacs who took the younger man under his wing. In addition to performing with Taylor as a duet, Isaacs helped develop his sense of jazz harmony and started him on the road to developing his fingerstyle technique.

Taylor attributes his musical talent to beginning to learn the guitar at an early age, playing frequently, and having many musicians on his father's side of the family.

The Grappelli years

Through Isaacs, Taylor was introduced to Stéphane Grappelli, former violinist in Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Reinhardt. When one of Grappelli's regular band members was injured, Taylor was invited to play a few European dates. Suitably impressed, Grappelli invited him to join full-time. He accepted, and performed and recorded with the Frenchman for the next eleven years—occupying the position once held by his idol, Reinhardt.

His success with Grappelli allowed him more freedom in his career. He reduced some of his commitments and relocated to Scotland where he still lives. (He is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Scottish.) Another benefit of his Grappelli association was that he began to tour North America regularly, helping him reach a new audience and build new relationships. He came to know musicians such as Chet Atkins and David Grisman, with whom he would both record, while another contact financed the production of an album, Sarabanda. The album received substantial airplay but financial difficulties at the record label prevented any major success.

This success was tempered by a difficult period in the mid 80s after Grappelli suffered a heart attack. Although he made a full recovery, it was some time before he could tour again. Taylor found it difficult to replace the Grappelli gig with other work, and fell into a period of financial hardship, selling his guitars to survive. He became disenchanted with music, and virtually didn't touch guitar for almost a year. He finally agreed on a price for his one remaining guitar, a gift from mentor Isaacs, but, on the way to close the deal he pulled his car over to allow himself a final play of the instrument and suddenly found his passion for playing re-ignited. He called off the deal, and this was a catalyst in the next stage of his career.

Going solo

Keen to avoid relying on other musicians for income, Taylor started to perform as a solo act. His individual style and engaging stage personality paid off and the gigs proved successful. After a few years he stopped touring with Grappelli and, aided by a recording contract with Scottish label Linn Records, he concentrated on his solo career. Primarily a manufacturer of high-end audio equipment, Linn felt that Taylor's intimate and intricate style and tone ably demonstrated the quality of their equipment. These Linn recordings include solo work (Artistry and Portraits, which featured Chet Atkins) and some recorded as a modern jazz quartet (Don't Fret). The relative success of these albums, and his concert dates, raised his profile in the guitar community as his peers became interested in his unique style.

In 1991 Taylor performed in Australia, giving a solo performance on the Hey Hey It's Saturday show. Tommy Emmanuel spotted him on the show and contacted him and the two became close friends and frequent collaborators. Taylor has stated that though their backgrounds were different, they shared many similarities and found that they'd been living "parallel lives" on the opposite side of the world.

Spirit of Django and other associations

Around the mid-90s Taylor started a band inspired by the music of Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club, which he named Spirit of Django. He recorded and toured successfully with this band while continuing his solo commitments. At the end of the decade he signed with Sony Music, releasing two albums—Kiss and Tell and Nitelife. After Sony, he signed with P3 Music, with whom he has released the albums Solo, and The Valley which features guest appearances by Bryn Terfel and Sacha Distel.

In 2002 a launch was held to celebrate the release of Paul Balmer's DVD film of Grappelli's life entitled "Stéphane Grappelli: A Life in the Jazz Century" at which Taylor performed in conjunction with other associates of Grappelli including John Etheridge, Jack Emblow (accordion) and the veteran bassist Coleridge Goode, who recorded with Grappelli and Django Reinhardt in 1946.

Solo technique

Since 2010, he has been teaching his solo method of guitar to students around the world at the Online Fingerstyle Guitar School with Martin Taylor.

Influences

His earliest influence was gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt from the Hot Club of Paris. Other influences include mentor Ike Isaacs, Ted Greene, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and Joe Pass. Although Taylor is inspired by many guitarists, musically he relates more to pianists, particularly Art Tatum.

Taylor's set lists largely include songs from the Great American Songbook and his own compositions. His arrangements and compositions are often influenced by composers like Nelson Riddle and Duke Ellington and, as such, include many moving lines to fill in the spaces, e.g., walking basslines, syncopated chordal 'stabs' (to emulate horn sections), and complex jazz harmony. All this is achieved without compromising the melody, which he considers the most important element in any arrangement.

Equipment

Martin Taylor often uses guitars built by Scottish-based luthier Mike Vanden. Together they produced the 'Martin Taylor Artistry' archtop with another, nylon-stringed, archtop used for Spirit of Django. Throughout the '90s he played a Yamaha AEX1500, which he helped develop.

In January 2012, Peerless guitars announced the release of two guitars endorsed by Martin, the higher-spec Maestro and the Virtuoso.

Discography

Honours and awards

Member of the Order of the British Empire, awarded by the Queen Elizabeth II (2002)