Dennis Taylor’s “Steppin’ Up”

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When saxophonist Dennis Taylor died suddenly of a heart attack last October, Nashville lost one of its finest old-school rhythm and blues musicians. A valued sideman for a long string of bandleaders, Taylor pined to make one album of his own. Most suspected it would be an exceptional work. Nobody imagined it would be a posthumous release.
WPLN’s Craig Havighurst reports.

(MUSIC: Mournful “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”)

Dennis Taylor spent five formative years in New Orleans, honing his tenor saxophone style. So when hundreds of his friends and colleagues gathered last fall at B.B. Kings’s to celebrate his life, a traditional second-line funeral march seemed more than appropriate.

(MUSIC: Joyful “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”)

Yes, that’s “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”

Karen Leipziger: “Because Dennis was also besides being passionate about the music was an avid, fanatic baseball fan.”

Karen Leipziger was Taylor’s wife and professional partner. As a leading publicist in the blues/R&B world, she has represented some of the artists with whom Taylor worked – avatars of bluesy Americana like Buckwheat Zydeco, Duke Robillard and the eccentric, pipe smoking guitar wizard Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. Here’s Taylor with Brown in 1985.

(MUSIC: “Take the A Train”)

A committed sideman, Taylor had but one aspiration as a leader – to cut an album with an organ trio. Just his saxophone, a drummer and a Hammond B3, the evocative organ so central to the blues and jazz traditions.

(MUSIC: “STEPPING UP”)
Stepping Up is the title track of that album, finished last fall and released this week.

Karen Leipziger: “This is a project that Dennis has talked about doing as long as I’ve known him. I met him 25 years ago. And he worked with other B3 players, and it was never quite right. It was just never the right situation. And then as soon as he started working with Kevin that’s when it all just came together.”

Keyboard player Kevin McKendree met Taylor on a session years ago and recruited him into his band working for Texas blues star Delbert McClinton. He says Taylor had an authentic, traditional tone that’s hard to find these days.

Kevin McKendree: “There’s a certain sensibility of playing R&B music, because it’s simple but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

Kevin McKendree.

Kevin McKendree: “It has more to do with how something feels than how technically good something is. Granted he was technically a pretty amazing player as well, but he didn’t have to play a lot of notes. He just always said the right thing with his instrument.”

(MUSIC: “HALLELUJA”)

Ray Charles’ “Hallelujah I Love Her So” was one of 14 songs Taylor and McKendree recorded over three days with three different drummers. Taylor chose – and wrote – some tricky, unconventional numbers to go along with old favorites.

Kevin McKendree: “The big one was the Beatles song And I Love her. How are we going to do that as an organ trio? Because it’s such an acoustic guitar song. It has nothing to do with jazz. But it does now (laughs).”

(MUSIC: “AND I LOVED HER”)

And speaking of love, Taylor wrote a song for Karen, called Special K. It is, little surprise, a blues.

(MUSIC: “SPECIAL K”)

Karen Leipziger: “He was so proud of it. I mean Dennis was so critical. He was never happy. Nothing was ever good enough. He worked constantly at it. This he was totally happy with.”

One of the last things Karen and Dennis ever did together was work out the sequencing of the songs on the CD and talk over the cover art. He left on the bus, as he had so many times before, but this time he did not return.

She says he never wanted to be anything but a sideman, but Taylor did leave behind something many sidemen never get to make – a very personal statement with his voice in the foreground.

For Nashville Public Radio, I’m Craig Havighurst.

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