Fiche Personne
Musique
Ebo Taylor
Musicien/ne, Auteur-compositeur/trice
Ghana
Français
Ebo Taylor quitte son Afrique natale en 1962 pour s’installer à Londres afin d’étudier d’autres genres et de bonifier le sien. Financé par des gouvernements africains, Ebo Taylor officie au sein du « Black star highlife », ce band essentiellement composé d’étudiants, lui permet de confronter son style à un côté plus occidental. De retour aux pays, Ebo Taylor produit une grande quantité de morceaux pour différents labels et travaille aussi bien entouré, comme avec C.K Mann, autre figure plus jeune du highlife. Toute cette production se retrouve éparpillée sur diverses compilations, notamment chez Strut
Son dernier album s’intitule « Love and death« .
Son dernier album s’intitule « Love and death« .
English
Following the wartime big band highlife pioneers like E.T. Mensah, Taylor became a major figure in Ghanaian highlife during the 1950s and’60s as highlife exploded. Cutting his teeth with leading big bands like Stargazers and Broadway Dance Band, Ebo Taylor quickly rose through the ranks and became a prolific composer and frontman. Taylor moved to London in 1962 to study. « I had the Black Star Highlife Band sponsored by the Ghanaian High Commission, mainly comprising music students. We tried to incorporate jazz into highlife and progressed through talking and through jam sessions, trying to develop our skills and ideas. »
Back in Ghana, Taylor became an in-house arranger and producer for labels like Essiebons, working with other leading Ghanaian stars including C.K. Mann and Pat Thomas. « I was paid to write for them and we made some great records. People were trying new things – I always loved C.K. Mann’s’Funky Highlife’. It was fresh. » Through the mid-’70s and into the’80s, Taylor then recorded a number of solo projects, exploring unique fusions and borrowing elements from traditional Ghanaian sounds, Fela’s Afrobeat, jazz, soul and funk. Tracks like’Heaven’ now stand as among the best Ghanaian Afrobeat of the era.
Now 74 years-old, Ebo Taylor’s music has become increasingly in-demand in recent years with a series of Ghanaian compilations on Soundway Records and Analog Africa and an unexpected sample as Usher lifted a riff from’Heaven’ for his hit with Ludacris,’She Don’t Know’. A new Ebo Taylor album was a natural progression. « For the new album, I wanted to advance the cause of Afrobeat music. Fela started it and we shouldn’t just abandon it. We should push it so it is a standard form of music. » The result is a firing new set backed by Afrobeat Academy, a Berlin-based collective featuring members of Poets Of Rhythm, Kabu Kabu (Jimi Tenor collaborators) and Ghanaian legends Marijata. Tracks include new versions of Taylor classics’Victory’ and’Love And Death’ and a selection of new compositions including’Kwame’, celebrating Ghana’s late, lamented leader Kwame Nkrumah.
Ebo Taylor’Love And Death’ will be released in CD / 2LP / digital formats. He will be touring with Afrobeat Academy from December 2010.
Back in Ghana, Taylor became an in-house arranger and producer for labels like Essiebons, working with other leading Ghanaian stars including C.K. Mann and Pat Thomas. « I was paid to write for them and we made some great records. People were trying new things – I always loved C.K. Mann’s’Funky Highlife’. It was fresh. » Through the mid-’70s and into the’80s, Taylor then recorded a number of solo projects, exploring unique fusions and borrowing elements from traditional Ghanaian sounds, Fela’s Afrobeat, jazz, soul and funk. Tracks like’Heaven’ now stand as among the best Ghanaian Afrobeat of the era.
Now 74 years-old, Ebo Taylor’s music has become increasingly in-demand in recent years with a series of Ghanaian compilations on Soundway Records and Analog Africa and an unexpected sample as Usher lifted a riff from’Heaven’ for his hit with Ludacris,’She Don’t Know’. A new Ebo Taylor album was a natural progression. « For the new album, I wanted to advance the cause of Afrobeat music. Fela started it and we shouldn’t just abandon it. We should push it so it is a standard form of music. » The result is a firing new set backed by Afrobeat Academy, a Berlin-based collective featuring members of Poets Of Rhythm, Kabu Kabu (Jimi Tenor collaborators) and Ghanaian legends Marijata. Tracks include new versions of Taylor classics’Victory’ and’Love And Death’ and a selection of new compositions including’Kwame’, celebrating Ghana’s late, lamented leader Kwame Nkrumah.
Ebo Taylor’Love And Death’ will be released in CD / 2LP / digital formats. He will be touring with Afrobeat Academy from December 2010.
Partager :
