The James Taylor Quartet

Following the 1986 split of the Prisoners, the Medway Valley psychedelic-mod outfit, organist James Taylor resolved to leave rock behind and explore jazz. He put together a Kent quartet that drew in former Prisoner Alan Crockford on bass plus ex-Daggermen Simon Howard on drums and his own brother David on guitar. The group cut a BBC session for John Peel and then Taylor headed to Sweden for a respite. The broadcast nevertheless generated enough interest for the band to land a contract with the fledgling mod label Re-Elect the President.

Their first release, the cover mini-album Mission Impossible, spotlighted 1960s soundtrack instrumentals centered on organ grooves, including the single “Blow Up,” shaped most clearly by Jimmy Smith and Booker T. & the MG’s. The Money Spyder extended the same cinematic thread, recalling the beat and jazz era while the Damned had parodied it under the name Naz Nomad & the Nightmares.

Growing impatient with the band’s constraints, Taylor pared the lineup down so that only his brother remained when Wait a Minute surfaced on Polydor’s Urban dance imprint in September 1988. A muscular version of “The Theme from Starsky and Hutch” brought in additional jazz players and former James Brown horn men, placing the JTQ at the center of London’s nascent acid-jazz movement. Howard and Crockford meanwhile supplied the rhythm section for ex-Prisoners guitarist Graham Day in his new band the Prime Movers.

Two rappers joined for the May 1989 single “Breakout,” signaling a possible shift toward the dance market, yet the album Do Your Own Thing fused jazz and dance while remaining rooted in rare-groove traditions, most vividly on their driving take of the 1970s club staple “Got to Get Your Own.” The long-awaited live set Absolute finally appeared in 1991 on Polydor’s Big Life subsidiary.

Ex-Style Council and Jazz Renegades drummer Steve White spent time in the JTQ, and Taylor himself guested with the Wonder Stuff, the Pogues, and U2. The more enduring roster included Gary Crockett on bass, Neil Robinson on drums, Dominic Glover on trumpet, and John Wilmott on saxophone and flute. Featuring new vocalist Noel McKoy, the 1993 singles “Love the Life” and “See a Brighter Day” sought chart success, but once the acid-house fad collapsed Taylor could pursue his music free of trend pressures. Later recordings issued on Acid Jazz Records, JSP, and Gut returned to the Hammond groove-jazz approach of Jimmy McGriff and Jimmy Smith. In 1997 Taylor’s composition “Austin’s Theme” featured in the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.