Sisters (feat. guitarist Ian Taylor)
Park Side Lounge
East Village, NYC
Nov. 3, 2023
“It’s funny you say playing, because it’s all just that … It’s all playing.”
So said guitarist Ian Taylor in response to my question about where the line is drawn between performing his own music versus that of others.
Ian the other night played in Sisters, a cover group whose choice of tunes spanned not only several genres, but at least three languages. Straddling the gap between lead and rhythm, Taylor picked along with the band unworried, sporting the vacant, relaxed face of an expert, of one who is unimpressed with that which is obvious. Outside of jazz musicians, it’s difficult to find a player who is a true chameleon, who can sit in with whatever group no matter the style.
“I know I’ve got a lot left to learn. I don’t know scales or whole bunch of theory but … I’ve grown up with this instrument.”
The 24-year-old guitarist is one of the few honestly self-taught musicians I’ve met. He performs with the same deep, intrinsic knowledge with which one could tell the life story of a sibling: “I grew up around musicians and everyone was busy all the time. When I was 6 years old, I remember my mother putting a guitar in my lap, one of those massive dreadnought acoustics, and my hands were way too small. She showed me like, ‘This is how you play a G chord, and a C chord, and a D chord,’ and I got those pretty fast. Once I did, she told me to never ask her for help unless I absolutely needed it. So, I never asked.”
This sort of musical upbringing, more akin to the way one learns a spoken language, is apparent not only in the sounds that come from Ian’s guitar, but from the physical approach he has toward the instrument. It reminds me of an old anecdote about Miles Davis auditioning members for his bands. He’d make his judgements before ever hearing the musician play. It was all about how the individual held their instrument: Did they wrestle with it? Was it a friend? Were they afraid of it? Were they in control?
Taylor’s own approach is one of tender control; there’s nothing forced. Right hand largely finger-picking, and left hand never wasting a stretch searching out the fingerboard, Taylor plays the guitar like it’s something he’s not only grown up with, but grown around. It’s cliché to say that the instrument is an extension of the artist, perhaps less so to observe it as a part of them.
Sisters certainly had Taylor running the stylistic gauntlet — a cover of No Doubt’s “Doghouse” in the same set as Jobim’s “One Note Samba.” There are few schooled musicians who could manage to hang unscathed through such genre-whiplash, much less convincingly play the specifics of each of these genre’s language.
“I listen to everything,” he said. “I know everyone says that, but really I have a hard time telling the differences between specific genres, and the things I like in the music I like can’t be boxed in to one specific thing.”
In Taylor’s own bands, Doc Honey (Taylor with the rhythm section filled out by drummer David Gruber and bassist Cesar Acevedo) and Ian Taylor & Co. (Taylor playing originals with a rotating cast of bandmates), certain influences ring forth louder than others. It’s rootsy, Americana-adjacent, vaguely ’70s psyche, and bathed in the mud of Bob Dylan. Still, the essences pulled in through wider ears are woven through and wefted true.
Taylor’s gonna be around for a while. Catch him next time, wherever and whenever.
