Less than two weeks ago, the septuagenarians Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea were leaving the Barbican stage in London to a standing ovation for their free-spirited piano partnership, and the rich shared experiences that fuelled it. The show spurred reflections on how widespread the two Americans’ influence – and that of fellow citizens Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner and Brad Mehldau – has been on jazz piano methods over the past 40 years. But in the wake of the death of the much-loved British pianist John Taylor, following a heart attack onstage in Segré, north-west France, aged 72, a different thought surfaces.
The self-deprecating, whimsical and elegantly awe-inspiring Taylor could undoubtedly have sat in on Corea’s or Hancock’s stool on those Barbican shows, swapped impromptu thoughts as freely with either one, sensed impending movements in their harmonically roving narratives as fast, spun them back with as much fascination for the thinking of Bartók or Debussy as well as Bill Evans, maybe added a little of the Englishness of Holst for good measure – and he would have done it with the same generosity of spirit and open ears.
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