Martin Taylor (guitarist)

Martin Taylor ( born October 20, 1956 in Harlow ) is a British jazz guitarist who is also known as a fingerstyle guitarist. Jazz Rough Guide and Allmusic According to the he is regarded as one of the world's best guitarists.

Life and work

Taylor comes from a musical family with Gypsy background. At the age of four years he received guitar lessons from his father, bassist William "Buck" Taylor, who played the music of the Quintette du Hot Club de France, so that Taylor first Django Reinhardt took as a model. At eight, he played regularly in his father's band. At 15, he left school to become a professional musician. He played in the orchestra of Lennie Hastings, but has been renowned in the Count Basie Orchestra. In the next few years he often played in London in a duo with both Peter Ind and with Ike Isaacs, who now influenced him. This introduced him to also Stéphane Grappelli, in whose band he played in the 1980s for a while. With Grappelli, he also appeared in North America, where he met David Grisman, with whom he recorded the album Sara Banda. Then he focused on his solo career and recorded several albums for the label Linn Records. In the mid-1990s, he founded the band Spirit of Django, but also toured solo on. For a time he was one of Bill Wyman 's Rhythm Kings. Taylor also wrote a textbook.

In 2007 he was awarded both the BBC Jazz Awards and the British Jazz Awards as Best Guitarist. In 2012 he was awarded the Scottish Jazz Award in the category of live jazz.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Sketches: A Tribute to Art Tatum (1984/1978)
• Sara Banda (1987, with David Grisman )
• Artistry (1990, solo)
• Reunion ( with Stephane Grappelli; 1993)
• Spirit of Django (1994 )
• Portraits ( with Chet Atkins, 1995)
• Kiss And Tell ( 1999)
• The Valley ( with Bryn Terfel, Sacha Distel and Simon Dinnigan, 2004)
• First Time Together! ( with Frank Vignola and David Grisman, 2012)

Lexical entries

• Ian Carr et al Jazz Rough Guide Metzler, Stuttgart 1999; ISBN 3-476-01584- X