In 2018, Paul Taylor‘s discovery of a Hammond C3 hidden away at the Glasshouse International Music Centre in Gateshead set him off on a voyage of discovery
It was not just a personal musical one, but also an opportunity to fully liberate the bulky and some might say archaic device from its classic image and give it a whole new lease of life. His description of firing up the starting motor and hearing the Leslie speaker start to revolve is warming, and his obvious love and even hidden desire to put the organ through its paces is clear from the two adventurous improvisational pieces collected here.
The celestial whirr, the sustained sense of tension is tied to the revolving speaker, giving whatever is played a constant momentum and you can feel the effort; this is no mere tinkling of the ivories as the grunt required to control the pitch and work around the foot pedals and drawbars makes it more like playing the organ whilst flying a light aeroplane — and yet it feels easy. Whirl And Magnet sways and swings with gusto, the drifting notes gathered up and scattered while chords are interspersed with single notes and swept along. There are momentary pauses, lulling us before more drama overwhelms and then recedes, always playing with the mood, always alive to new possibilities.
Recorded pre-covid, you can’t help but enjoy the unleashed sense of adventure here, as if the instrument itself were somehow alive and leading him away from the kind of ecclesiastical tedium it might have spent many previous years performing. The notes unfurl, peel away layers and then set themselves back, flowering in this forgotten corner, joyful and reactionary, perfectly content to allow this player / instrument symbiosis. At times sounding like a steam train starting off and at other becoming the aural equivalent of a kaleidoscope, never sitting still, the constant hum of revolution giving a fresh slant to every key touched. The second section feels more playful, as if Paul has gained confidence in the machine; and conversely the Hammond is allowing him to develop, has seduced him into a touch of recklessness. The different levels of echo and sustain, the sensation of scampering up and down the keyboards with added flourishes all lead into a certain prog-funk direction, if only for a second or two, before being discarded for something more sepulchral. It moves seemingly at random; but towards the end, the notes are really allowed to inhabit the space, letting them sustain and fade into a final curious coda where the notes’ structure appears to dissipate, wandering loosely and giving us pause to consider what further adventures these two may undertake.What I would love to see would be Paul revolving through the floor of the Tower Ballroom, Reginald Dixon‘s ghost and the assorted tea dance throngs trying to sashay to the wayward delights which he has conjured up. It goes to show that there is a future for something that is as enjoyable as any organ out there now, and perhaps this is the start of something.
-Mr Olivetti-
