{"id":10060,"date":"2025-01-23T01:07:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T07:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=10060"},"modified":"2025-05-01T09:03:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T14:03:48","slug":"protecting-the-history-a-conversation-with-ebo-taylor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/protecting-the-history-a-conversation-with-ebo-taylor\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the History: A Conversation with Ebo Taylor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many define \u201cjazz\u201d as the meeting of African rhythms and European harmonies. In a sense, this narrative is accurate – if you remove the influence of the church, songs of the field, or cues from the homeland – the form would cease to exist. But, in another sense, this effort to identify broad sources subjugates nuance in favor of narrative simplicity. While there is an undeniable pan-African aesthetic with elements like call and response, the cultures of the Western continent are not identical. The true differences are perhaps best seen when hues of \u201cAmerica\u2019s Classical Music\u201d return to Africa. Nigerian Afrobeat is distinct from Ghanaian highlife, which becomes evident when comparing two releases by the Jazz is Dead series: Tony Allen JID 018<\/em> (2023) and Ebo Taylor JID 022<\/em> (2025), even as the lines become increasingly muddled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in the early Twentieth Century, the king of highlife music is the guitar. Built around a two-finger plucked arpeggiated approach, early progenitors of the form drew from the rhythmic complexity of the Afro-Cuban guajeo. The songs were mostly in major modes and songs by people like \u201cThe King of Highlife,\u201d E.T. Mensah or Sir Victor Uwaifo were rhythmically rich but often more laid back and designed for mid-tempo dance.  By contrast, many think of the Afrobeat style created by Fela Kuti and Tony Allen in the 1960s as much more frenetic, up-tempo, and in minor modes. The guitar is generally less at the forefront. JID 018<\/em> does well in displaying this approach with one of the music\u2019s founding fathers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here is where things get interesting. The sounds of highlife and Afrobeat are distinguishable and identifiable. But each style does not live in a vacuum. Instead, there is a cycle of mutual artistic reinforcement. Highlife was one of Afrobeat\u2019s top guiding inspirations. But simultaneously, one of the most important names of contemporary highlife – guitarist-vocalist Ebo Taylor – was good friends with Kuti. They informally studied jazz and other music together and elements of Afrobeat inevitably seeped into Taylor’s approach to highlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is songs like those on JID 022<\/em> which honor Taylor\u2019s traditional path without narrowly defining it. A song like the closer \u201cFeeling\u201d is more propulsive and urgent sounding than the works of someone like Mensah or Uwaifo. And yet, the essence of the highlife lineage that developed in the Land of the Rising Sun is undeniably built into the piece. This balancing of history and modernity is an excellent fit for the Jazz is Dead team. Label founders Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge have their feet in both the worlds of jazz and hip hop, themselves effectively continuing the legacy of a musical form that came before while tying it to a branch born of the same roots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now eighty-nine, Taylor will temporarily leave his longtime home in the small city of Salt Pond for a cross-country farewell tour of America. Joined by his longtime collaborator Pat Thomas, the guitarist will bring his distinctive sound and inspired lyrics on love, loss, and spirituality to audiences who have far too long overlooked the significance of his contributions to not only African music but all music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We corresponded with Taylor via email on his Jazz is Dead album, his career, and his upcoming tour. The conversation has been edited for clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PostGenre:  You have been making music professionally for almost seventy years. But it seems it has been only the last decade or two that you have received much attention in the US. Do you credit the internet for that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ebo Taylor: Yes, I will credit the internet. My management team and I have a comprehensive strategy in place to promote me as an artist and my music, and much is being done on the internet.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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