Melvin Taylor Blues Trio in Maribor (2006)

 Thunder and lightning saw me off as I crossed Trojane and then rolled into Maribor for the second night of the Melvin Taylor blues trio at the Satchmo jazz club. Melvin fired things up so well in Maribor this time that his first night was completely sold out. Since he’s sticking around our parts for a while (in a few days Melvin Taylor will also play Klub Perla in Nova Gorica), the organizers pulled off a bonus show and one more unforgettable evening of “Chicago blues” hanging out. The show was announced for 9:30 PM, but the friendly guy at the door warned me that nothing would happen before 10:30 PM, and wouldn’t you know it, he was right. Melvin finally strolled onstage at exactly 10:30 PM, visibly relaxed and smiling. This time, surprisingly, he was joined by two young white guys, Felton Crews on bass and the precise drummer Kenneth Colleman. Both are still pretty much unknowns in the blues world, but playing alongside Melvin Taylor will give them a solid head start. Melvin is a likeable guy as a person, and his main virtue, which definitely doesn’t go unnoticed for long, is his “gabbiness”. The man talks literally as if he were wound up, and more often than not the yakking carries him away and he almost loses the musical thread. I first noticed this trait years ago, at the taping of the show “Izza odra”, where Brane Rončel hosted this very gentleman some ten years back, and I have to admit that the part of the show meant as a talk interview was mostly filled by Melvin himself, which made Rončel’s otherwise exhausting job of grilling a guest a whole lot easier 

The show itself went by routinely and, for the sake of good taste, a little too loose/unbuttoned. Melvin, with his guitar (a slightly modified Ibanez semi-acoustic jazz guitar), is always at the center of the action, while the other two members faithfully follow him and react to his slightest hint. His whims are boundless, because, as I already mentioned, the man improvises the whole time, so you never know what’s going to hit you next. His spicy blend of urban jazz and blues takes on a whole new flavor that way. The other slightly bothersome thing, which wasn’t just noticed by me but by the rest of the crowd too, was the virtuoso’s considerable tipsiness. He kept toasting and knocking back a mix of whiskey and local Laško beer, plain for everyone to see. Apparently, with his longer stay in our parts, Melvin has also made some closer acquaintances, and we were convinced of it by his persistent flirting with certain characters in the audience and his endless mentions of “grandma`s cookies” and green mushrooms, which in my opinion Melvin really didn’t need to take this time.

It would be hard to talk about the set list or song selection, since with all the constant improvising and the transitions and links between songs, Melvin makes it impossible to pin down any individual track. If we sum it up, all we can say is that the songs he played were good overall, while the rest were only partially hinted at or played as, say, the Van Halen songs… which were comical. His playing technique looks even more imposing live, and his speed is downright shocking. The man is a master of racing up and down the neck, though with so much repetition that can get a bit boring up close in a club. And the speed on a clean guitar sound, because of the soft touch, makes it impossible to hear each individual note, which ends up sounding kind of half-baked, and that’s what happened to Melvin this time.

And wouldn’t you know it, as if that weren’t enough, in the middle of the concert, after a good hour of playing, the man treated himself to a half-hour break (reportedly on the first night too) and, to the general astonishment of everyone present, with the remark that he had to go shake hands with a friend in the restroom, he vanished from the stage. The ace of time ticked by and Melvin peeked out from backstage several times, but nothing happened. We in the audience were overcome by the feeling that we weren’t at a Melvin Taylor concert but at one of those summer gigs on some terrace down on the coast, where this kind of fuel-pouring practice is a permanent star. Anyway, after a good half hour the trio reappeared onstage, and this time Melvin explained to us, in some incomprehensible and drunken speech, that he was born in the middle of a revolution in 1959 and so on. I don’t think even he knows what exactly he meant by that, but he gave off a feeling of visible confusion, which also showed in the performance of his songs. The concert felt like it was nearing its end, and thank God Melvin, thanks to his rhythm section, was brought safely to the finish without any major incident. What exactly happened or is happening with Melvin probably remains a mystery, but the fact is that blues is music of mixed emotions, and so sometimes the less pleasant ones come floating to the surface too, and Melvin Taylor in Maribor was obviously a victim of them. We can only hope he’ll fare better in Nova Gorica. Until then, all we have is the memory of a pleasant hangout at Satchmo, which deserves special credit, because without it many a big name would simply bypass our lovely countryside.

Text and photo: Thomas Breznik