James Taylor Quartet

Swearing off rock and roll in favor of jazz after the 1986 dissolution of his band The Prisoners, organist James Taylor cobbled together three collaborators to form the James Taylor Quartet (JTQ). After they played a set for the influential British DJ John Peel, Taylor decided to abandon his music career, but that recording led to interest from a label. This led to their 1987 breakthrough album, Mission Impossible, a collection of songs that dove head-first into the sounds of psychedelic swinging 60s London with funk-laden covers of Herbie Hancock’s score for Blow Up, Paul Simon’s “Mrs. Robinson”, and the title TV theme by Lalo Schifrin. They explored this cultural past further with a notable cover of the theme to the TV show Starsky and Hutch, which was included on 1988’s Wait a Minute. After incorporating more modern dance music elements in their 1990 album Do Your Own Thing, JTQ scored a top 40 hit with “Love the Life”, from their 1993 album Supernatural Feeling. They went from riffing on famous theme songs to creating one when their track “Austin’s Theme” became the main theme in the Mike Myers film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Though the line-up of the quartet would regularly changeover, the group would collaborate with numerous hitmakers like Tom Jones, The Pogues, and U2. During the first two decades of the 21st century they released an impressive 14 albums, constantly exploring their hybrid of jazz and funk in both live and studio settings.

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