1. Blow Up
2. One Mint Julep
3. Be My Lady
4. Mission Impossible
5. Goldfinger
6. The Cat
7. Mrs Robinson
8. Alfie’s Theme
9. The Stooge
10. The Money Spyder
11. One Way Street
12. Car Chase
13. The Spiral Staircase
14. Mr Cool's Dream
15. Untitled 1
16. A Real Mean Time
17. The Onion Club
18. The Stroll
19. Los Cuevos Pablo
20. Midnight Stomp (The New Rhumba)
21. Buzy Bee
22. In the Park
23. Untitled 2
James Taylor – Hammond organ, piano, harpsichord
David Taylor – Guitar
Allan Crockford – bass
Simon "Wolf" Howard - Drums
James
Taylor is confusing. He not only has the same
name as a famous singer (who was married to
Carly Simon) but his quartet has often been
advertised as a jazz ensemble. This album
suggests that this description is wide of
the mark. Certainly his group comes into the
mysterious category of "acid jazz"
but, as that has always been a vague term,
it doesn’t mean a lot.
This
album actually transports the listener back
to the 1960s, with that characteristic boogaloo
rhythm, the rather desperate drum fills and
the clanging Shadows-type guitar. In fact
this music was recorded in 1987, when the
JTQ debuted with a somewhat old-fashioned
sound. Several tracks sound like soundtracks
for films about swinging London – indeed,
several of them are film themes, like Goldfinger
and Mrs Robinson.
It’s
pop music with hints of jazz, mostly from
James’s Hammond organ. But it would be impossible
to bracket James Taylor with such masterly
jazz organists as Jimmy Smith or Jack McDuff.
The style is nearer the danceable pop music
of Booker T and the MGs, whose organ-led funk
was popular in the sixties and seventies –
and had no pretensions to being jazz. At best
it could be called jazz-funk.
Now
James Taylor has moved on with a jazzier group.
See our next review, of an album by James’s
4th Dimension.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
BGP
CDBGPD 184
