James Taylor Quartet Interview

British jazz band the James Taylor Quartet are enjoying 25 years in the music industry and what better way to celebrate than taking their high energy show around the country.  Ahead of a show at the Wardrobe in Leeds we got some time with James Taylor, who’s amazing Hammond organ playing leads the quartet and is regularly called on by other musicians.

What attracted you to the Hammond organ in the first place?

When I was growing up I was into the Small Faces and they had a great keyboard sound. I didn’t even know what it was but a friend of mine told me about this mad instrument with speakers that rotate and I kind of got fascinated with it before I saw one. Then I went to see one, to play one and that was it I was hooked.

What are your gigs like?

It’s an intimate show that we do really; I try to connect with the audience I guess. It’s very raw what we do, its high energy and feisty. People say its jazz and stuff but I’m influenced by punk music as much as anything else. It’s got all the American tradition of RnB, funk and soul in there as well, it’s largely instrumental and there is quite a soundtrack aspect to it as well. It’s quite a complex hybrid of stuff and it just ends up being what it is, quite identifiable as the JTQ sound. That is largely built around the Hammond and the funky drums. Our stuff gets used all the time on the telly, things like come dine with me or cash in the attic. You name it, some sort of TV program and there will some sort of Hammond organ in the background and that’s us quite often.

Your songs are mostly instrumental, how do fill the space that vocals normally take up in a track?

You can really quickly over play that hand if you try and do just a four-piece instrumental set, that’s an extremely difficult thing to do for 90 minutes. You will lose an audience within 10 minutes of doing that. The thing to do is to let them find that exciting and then move onto the next, more expanded thing, maybe with horns and then maybe a vocal and move it around in terms of the groove, the approach and in terms of how you bring an audience into the middle of it.

Is there any one else you would like to work with?

I have managed to work with most of my hero’s. If I could make an album with George Benson, I have worked with him but I would like to make an album just him and me. He has no reason to want to do that with me but I would like to do that with him. He is a really funky guitarist and I think it would work well with what I do. 




Published in Yorkshire Evening Post