104 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM Finding His Voice But it wasn’t until his 20s that Taylor felt like he’d truly found his own sound. “It became less emulating,” he reflects. Now, “I have more conviction over who I am as a musician and as a stylistic identity.” Classifying his work as modern progressive jazz with some cross-genre flair, Taylor notes, “As I grew older, I absorbed a lot of other influences from different types of music—everything from classical music and Björk, pop music and soul, R&B … I play all the time with musicians who are a little bit more genre-unspecific.” His music’s intricacy, another mainstay in his composition, stems from musical collaborations. Not only have numerous artists lent their voices and instruments to Taylor’s albums, but he’s also repaid the favor, joining in as a supporting sideman on over 70 albums to date. “It’s such an interesting community where we all play in each other's bands,” he describes. This relational method of music-making stands out when Taylor performs with his quartet. He frequently interacts with the other players on stage, a captivating conversation held entirely in expressions and riffs. That collaborative spirit is strong in his 2021 album Tree Falls, a work filled with rich symphonic sound and sweeping strains. “I wanted to have the strings and woodwinds and have that kind of orchestral lushness in there,” Taylor describes. One special song, “Rainbows,” was inspired after Taylor listened to a recording from his sister’s memorial service. “Some tunes take 10 years, some tunes are just the never-ending bridge—I wrote that tune in 10 minutes,” he shares. The Highs & Lows It didn’t take long for Tree Falls to garner a lot of attention, and the season following the album’s release was a whirlwind. “It was a really weird year,” Taylor notes of 2022. In quick succession, he went through a breakup, won a Grammy Award for best contemporary instrumental album, then lost his mother to her long battle with dementia. Days after her death, Taylor found solace in composing. “I've dealt with enough tragedy in my life that I'm not going to stop the world and just sit in the grief,” he notes. “Every single day that I would be home from the road, I was working on that album.” He spent 71 days recording on four different pianos (including Frank Sinatra’s Steinway) to bring the album Plot Armor to life. Not only is the album dedicated to his mother, but the lyrics of the track “Fire Within” are also drawn from notes left Piano Man PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: ELIZAVETA VON STUBEN
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