"Nouveau Mid-Century Romance Songbook"

It was the yellow brick road that lead me to my crush on mid-century jazz standards. At age 7, while watching “The Wizard of Oz” and understanding the message of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow," I felt the sky, and my dreams, open. I owe a lot of my optimism to composer Harold Arlen. That same year I remember staying up past my bedtime and sneaking in a viewing of the Billie Holiday bio-pic, “Lady Sings The Blues.” When Abel Meeropol’s “Strange Fruit” scratched my ears, it ushered my soul to a depth that no seven-year-old should dive into. In one year, I fell in love with the brightest and darkest songs I’ve heard even to this day; and a style, genre and period of music that most effortlessly connects to the core of who I am. I started taking voice lessons the following year, and my favorite songs were those of Gershwin, Porter, Ellington, Strayhorn, and the like. My favorite voices were Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sara Vaughn, Mel Torme, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and the singing of famous trumpeter, Chet Baker. And nothing could match the emotional deliverance of Lady Day. The themes, melodies, chords, timelessness and sheer coolness of those early American songbook tunes were unparalleled. When a trombone fell from the heavens, into my hands, and upon my lips, it cherried my adoration for jazz and mid-century music. I started penning my own valentines to songbook that formed me. I challenge myself everyday to create pieces that will pepper our somewhat cold, and jagged zeitgeist,­­ with kisses of old-fashioned fine romance.

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Ty Taylor has awakened this music, from his dreams into real life, through a partnership with his right-and-left-hands-in-crime: longtime friend and celebrated jazz drummer, Robert Perkins and the soul-stirring pianist, Peter Smith. After a two-day recording session (engineered by David Davis at East West Studios in Hollywood, California) the dynamic trio, along with their collected jazz orchestra, placed their self-produced/arranged album within the heart and mind of mixer, Peter McCabe, who transformed the rich black and white of their soundscape into a vibrant technicolor.