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TAYLOR MESPLÉ
Taylor became a full time studio musician and performer at age 13, so he's had over 20 years to make these connections and collaborations happen. By now, Taylor has recorded on over 160 CD's for other artists, but has only released 3 full length CD's and 2 EP's of his own music. This is because his own music takes a long, thoughtful baking in the oven of his creative mind, sometimes 4 or more years for a single recording.
Though never reaching a vast audience thus far, Taylor's thoughtful music has made a big impact on niche markets and has developed small "cult" followings in the US and abroad. Taylor has stuck true to his guns as an artist, and has resisted tempting offers to mold his music into easy categories and copycat fad formulas.
Taylor has long experimented with blurring the fine line between vocal and instrumental music. Many of his early instrumental compositions, especially those for the band Wind Machine, featured "wordless vocal melodies" along the lines of the Pat Metheny Group or Bobby McFerrin, that he sang. He was asked to do similar melodic singing for jazz artists such as Fahrenheit Records artist Mark Sloniker as a result. The title track to Wind Machine's "Timeline" CD was Taylor's instrumental composition that featured Nelson Rangell playing the melody on soprano saxophone. Many years later, that song would become a vocal song with lyrics on the Victory Land CD called "Glory". Taylor still performs both versions as called for.Overall, Taylor's artistry combines the melodic accessibility of great sophisticated Pop music with the all out "blowing" of heavy instrumental "chops" from every instrument in his band. He is usually working with players like Mel Brown, Darren Rahn, Peter Mayer, Duke Levine, Howard Levy, Joe Gamble, Nelson Rangell and others... players that not only can play a soulful, catchy melody with passion, but can also blow the doors down with virtuosity when called for. That unexpected shift into high gear can explode at any time, and it keeps the listener on the tips of their toes. Don't look for predictable endings and short, tidy radio songs most of the time... Taylor's music is generally long, epic songs that develop in a captivating and dramatic way
.Taylor has played high prestige live events such as the Conference on World Affairs with luminaries like Nelson Rangell and Don Grusin, and performed thousands of shows across the country, mostly jazz festivals. He recently played piano and sang backup vocals for James Taylor at a live radio show, which was a career highlight. Just this year, he performed at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ as the stand-in bandleader of Bill Chinnock's touring band of which he was a part for the last 2 years of Bill's legendary career. Bill's band featured Taylor alongside luminaries like Tony "Thunder" Smith and Janice Pendarvis. But these days, Taylor is busy enough recording, producing, being a session player as a sideman and writing songs for others that he doesn't perform much. He is getting ready to mix Neil Zaza's new CD and continues to produce CD's for a variety of artists. He lives in Maine with his wife Rebecca and his 3 young children who are the center of his world. Taylor runs a small record label called "Old Port Records" and has his own recording studio and vintage guitar arsenal. Taylor's father Steve Mesple is the owner of Wildwood Guitars and as an accomplished musician himself, he is the reason Taylor got such an early start in music, by giving Taylor a place in his band "Wind Machine" many years ago.