Biography
Job Title: Principal Lecturer (part-time)
Courses Taught: Specialist Study jazz guitar, Final Project ensembles.
Specialisms: Jazz and improvised music
Jamie is building a strong reputation throughout the UK and overseas, as a dynamic jazz guitarist and composer.
His playing (which has drawn praise from leading critics including The Guardian’s John Fordham, and Jazzwise’s Robert Shore) has been heard at a long list of jazz clubs/festivals including Ronnie Scott’s, The Vortex, Pizza Express Jazz Club Dean Street, The Troubadour, Oliver’s, Wavendon Stables, Birmingham Jazz, The Blue Lamp (Aberdeen), Glyndwr University (Wrexham), Jazz @ Future Inn (Bristol), Bonington Theatre (Nottingham), Sheffield Jazz, Splinter (Newcastle), Studio Two and Frederik’s (Liverpool), Seven Arts (Leeds), RNCM, Witney Jazz Club, Wakefield Jazz, Lincoln Drill Hall, The Venue at Leeds College of Music, Manchester Jazz Festival, Stavanger Trad Festival (part of Mai Jazz), Scarborough Jazz Festival, Burton Agnes Jazz Festival, Matt and Phred’s (Manchester), NQ Jazz (Manchester), Benningans (Londonderry/Derry), and Zeffirelli’s (Ambleside), amongst many others across the United Kingdom.
Jamie appears frequently with drummer Sebastiaan DeKrom's resident trio at the legendary Troubadour club in London's Earl's Court, usually alongside organist Pete Whittaker, or regular bassists Jeremy Brown and Steve Watts. Meanwhile, his collaboration with fellow guitarist Sam Dunn is a recurrent feature of Ronnie's Scott's 'Two For The Road' duo series.
He has also been privileged to work on a more occasional basis with many other excellent jazz musicians from around the world, such as:
Wayne Escoffery, Sheryl Bailey, John Stowell, John Goldsby, Baptiste Herbin, Roni Ben-Hur, Bart DeFoort, Steve Fishwick, Graham Harvey, Alan Barnes, Laura Jurd, Geoff Gascoyne, Tim Thornton, Andrea DiBiase, Tori Freestone, David Lyttle, Neil Yates, Richard Iles, Tom Harrison, and Gary Potter. In the field of popular music, he has collaborated with Richard Hawley, The Pigeon Detectives, and Sarah Mitchell, with whom Jamie recorded for the acclaimed jazz label Candid.
In September 2017, Jamie completed a 15-date UK tour with the jazz/rock group “Perpetual Motion Machine”, in support of its debut album, released in the same year. Prior to this came the “Outside Line” project, which also featured Matt Anderson, Garry Jackson, and Dave Walsh. In January 2014 this band released the album “Introducing Outside Line” on GLP records, which was well received by the jazz press. Jamie also recorded with Jamil Sheriff’s contemporary big band for the same label, and participated in a number of associated live dates. In Autumn 2022, Jamie gave duo concerts and a masterclass with the acclaimed US guitarist John Stowell.
He has also reached a considerable international audience through his video jazz guitar lessons, sold online through the American website Mike’s Masterclasses where his instructional material appears alongside that of some of America’s finest jazz musicians. www.mikesmasterclasses.com
Elsewhere, Jamie has led regular improvisation workshops in his home city on behalf of Sheffield Jazz, and has done the same for similar organizations elsewhere. He has been an electric guitar adviser and clinician for Yorkshire Young Musicians and a featured tutor on the residential guitar courses run by North Wales Jazz.
Although in a part-time role at the conservatoire today, Jamie was Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Jazz programme between 2007 and 2009, and has taught in almost every area of the institution’s jazz curriculum. Many of his former students have gone on to forge successful performance careers of their own, and can be found working with/in a diverse range of acts including Everything Everything, Cinematic Orchestra, The 1975, Submotion Orchestra, Roller Trio, The Bryan Ferry Orchestra and many others. One of the most successful of these former students is the internationally acclaimed guitarist and songwriter Bruno Major, to whom Jamie gave 1-to-1 tuition for three years.
Whilst his research activity has taken a back seat to performance in recent years, Jamie was a delegate at the Association of European Conservatoires Jazz/Pop Platform event at Lausanne in 2008 and has presented conference papers at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the RNCM as well as at LC. Along with his erstwhile colleagues Dr. Petter Frost Fadnes and Dr. Catherine Tackley, Jamie co-authored a PALATINE-funded research paper entitled "Integrating Theory and Practice", subsequently published by Cambridge University Press.
Jamie Taylor is a Hofner Artist and uses Thomastik-Infeld strings in association with Barnes And Mullins.
“Jamie Taylor’s edgy fusion guitar burns through T.T.F.” – John Fordham, The Guardian, 03/05/2013
“An alternative perspective on the blues legacy, taking in elements of swing, bop, and funk. It’s clever, engaging stuff” – Robert Shore, Jazzwise, July 2014
“His ability to keep the groove, feel and melody of any tune going during his improvisations creates a guide through each of his solos. This is not to say that Taylor does not take chances and experiment, but he has an uncanny ability to navigate the listener through these moments…always grooving.” – Matt Warnock, All About Jazz, May 2009
For more information about Jamie: www.jamie-taylor.com
