Craig Taborn

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Craig Marvin Taborn (born February 20, 1970) is an American pianist, organist, keyboardist, and composer.

He performs as a soloist and in bands, mainly playing various styles of jazz.

He began playing piano and Moog synthesizer as an adolescent and was inspired by a variety of styles of music, including those of free jazz and contemporary classical music. Taborn toured and recorded with jazz saxophonist James Carter while at university.

Taborn continued to perform with many other musicians in electronic and acoustic venues, as well as establishing a reputation as a solo pianist.

He has a variety of styles, and often adapts his playing to the instrument's form and the sounds that he can make it produce.

His improvising, particularly for solo piano, often takes a modular approach in which he begins with small units of melody and rhythm and then expands them into larger sizes and structures. Down Beat magazine voted Taborn the best electronic keyboard category, as well as a rising star in both the piano and organ categories in 2011.

Taborn had released nine albums as leader or co-leader by mid-2017, and had appeared on more than ninety as a sideman.

Early life

Taborn was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to John, a psychologist, and Marjorie, a social worker. His father was a department chair at the University of Minnesota, and his mother worked for Minneapolis public schools. John Gregory, Taborn's older brother, became a psychologist. Craig Taborn attended Breck School in Golden Valley, Minnesota, where they grew up. When he was 12, his parents gave him a Moog synthesizer as a gift, which was also around the time when he started playing piano. He got basic instruction from his father, who played by ear. Taborn, among other things, acquired music from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and Sun Ra. He listened to heavy metal and contemporary classical music as a child and discovered commonalities among these various styles of music.

Taborn studied music theory and composition for two years with music teachers who had doctorates in music. He is "not a classically trained pianist at all"; he performed with others, first playing rock, progressive rock, and jazz fusion before becoming more interested in jazz. When high school, he borrowed Segments II (Orchestra Of Two Continents) by pianist Cecil Taylor's band, but separating the various parts of the music was impossible. After attending a Last Exit concert (a big free jazz band played by Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Sonny Sharrock), he returned home and listened to the Taylor album again: "It was more manageable in terms of being able to hear detail and listen to music." It was a big moment for being able to relax and process data in more complex environments."

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Later life and career

Taborn attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from 1988 to 1989. He auditioned for the jazz program at the University of Music's School of Music, but he moved to the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. After arriving at university, Taborn met drummer Gerald Cleaver, and they formed the Tracey Science Quartet, an electronic group. Taborn has worked with Marcus Belgrave and Wendell Harrison. When he was still a student, he became known for his contribution to a line of albums, beginning with JC on the Set, which was released in 1993.

Taborn's first appearance as leader appeared in 1994, and DIW first announced it in 1995. Craig Taborn Trio, as well as bassist Jaribu Shahid and drummer Tani Tabbal, showcased Taborn's versatility on piano, as well as several of his own compositions. "Even if I like avant garde jazz and classical music, I like to swing." Robert Schumann's words on his composition and performance were: "I think about his composition and performance: I like to compose harmony and melody in my own music, and acoustic instruments are ideal. However, I can be very draconian about the assembled section, and I can go into great detail about what everyone is supposed to do and how they should do it."

Taborn's studies were postponed due to frequent performances and tours with Carter and others: he graduated from university with a bachelor's degree in general studies (rather than the intended English literature) in April 1995, and moved to New York. He continued to play with Carter into 1998. Taborn also performed with saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell (Taborn's first appearance on the ECM label) and Carl Craig's album Programmed as part of Innerzone Orchestra in the late 1990s.

Taborn's second album as leader, Light Made Lighter, for Thirsty Ear, features Chris Lightcap on bass and Cleaver on drums. "Taborn emerges as one of the most exciting pianists to lead a band after Matthew Shipp's ascent." "Taborn seems to revel in the cracks the way [Thelonious] Monk did, despite the fact that the notes were not able to punctuate his sentences.»

In the words of one biographer, "Taborn" became one of New York's most in-demand musicians in the 2000s. He performed and recorded with a large, diverse range of musicians, including free jazz and more traditional bands, as well as playing various keyboard and electronic instruments. One critic said that a majority of his performances in the early and mid-2000s did not feature a bassist, and that Taborn's "exterity and creativity [...] stand in for both a keyboard and a bass player." He appeared in New York for the first time as a soloist, and under the direction of saxophonist Tim Berne and percussionist Susie Ibarra, he made his first recordings under his new name. He used electronics as well as piano to achieve all of these tasks. Taborn set a new record in the period 2002-2004 as a sideman under the leadership of Steve Coleman, Dave Douglas, Marty Ehrlich, Drew Gress, Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, and others. Taborn performed with Ibarra's band in Europe in 2003 and played with saxophonist Lotte Anker for the first time.

Junk Magic was Taborn's third appearance as a leader in 2004, as a result of tenor saxophonist Aaron Stewart, violist Mat Maneri, and drummer Dave King. The album's name was also the name of the band, which was conceived to be Taborn's electronic band, allowing him to investigate the musical, improvisation, and electronics interactions. Texture and pulse were two key contributors to the overall sound.

Taborn played with Chris Potter from 2005 to 2007, and toured Europe with the saxophonist's Underground band starting in 2007. In 2007, the pianist appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Taborn toured internationally with Underground, guitarist David Torn's Prezens, in late 2007, Gress, Ibarra, Mitchell, and William Parker, as well as being on shorter tours and making occasional appearances with Cleaver, Gress, Gress, Ibarra, Mitchell, and William Parker. He toured Europe in April 2008 with Berne's Science Friction, and he was back in Europe for the first three weeks of the following month, this time as part of David Binney's quartet, and he returned from there in November with Potter. In 2008, Taborn said he was planning to phase out the use of a laptop in practice, allowing him to concentrate more on advancing and learning, as well as realizing as a leader. He wrote about the number of regular, working bands he was a member of last year: "You could say 15 to 20." But if you're talking about the ones that are actually operating right now, I'd have to say seven or eight."

Taborn appeared under Michael Formanek's leadership for the first time the following year. Taborn performed with trumpeter Tomasz Stakosz Stako in New York in 2009 and then returned to Europe for concerts with Torn, violinist Dominique Pifarély, and his own trio.

Taborn continued performing and recording with others in the early 1990s, but he had more solo appearances than he did earlier in his career. He went on tour of Europe in 2010 and may have pushed for an agreement with ECM to record his first solo piano album, Avenging Angel, which was released in 2011. "In critic Nate Chinen's review, this album concentrated on "pure sound" being "full of times where a note hangs prominently in the air, and you can hear the growing overtones, the string vibrations." The album helped Taborn get more attention as a leader.

Taborn performed piano duets with Vijay Iyer in 2010 and also traveled Europe with Anker's trio Potter's Underground. Taborn performed with Stako again in the following year, as part of drummer Paul Motian's quartet, and was on his second solo tour of Europe in the following year. Taborn performed internationally with Anker's trio and Prism of Dave Holland in 2012, and remained a member of Holland's band until 2014.

In 2013, ECM's Chants, led by Taborn and with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Gerald Cleaver, was released. This was the trio's first appearance after eight years together. "I knew that if I created a context and then deferred fully to Gerald's and Thomas' sensibilities, it would immediately be stimulating and would also challenge the situation." [...] I'd much rather participate with the community than have the storyline be 'piano adventures with supporting cast'." In 2014, the band began a tour of Europe, but J.T. replaced Cleaver. Due to sickness, the Bates Part of the way through it. Taborn formed a small group led by guitarist Bill Frisell earlier this year. Taborn appeared as part of the Ches Smith Trio late in 2014 and traveled with the percussionist and Mat Maneri early in 2016. Flaga: Book of Angels Volume 27, his sixth album as leader, was released in 2016. The trio, with Christian McBride on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, used John Zorn compositions. The quartet Daylight Ghosts, which mixed electronic and acoustic elements, was Taborn's next ECM album. This was followed by a series of duo albums: Octopus with Kris Davis from 2016, Highsmith with Ikue Mori in 2017, and The Transitory Poems with Iyer from 2018. Junk Magic first appeared on a second album in 2020 – Compass Confusion – with the Taborn-led band now a quintet. Shadow Plays, Taborn's second solo piano album, was released in concert in 2020. 60 X Sixty – 60 tracks of around a minute in length, with random order at 60xsixty.com the following year.

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