Ebo Taylor’s legacy is assured. Not only has his back catalogue been preserved in high fidelity, reissued, and even sampled (hey there, Usher), but the octogenarian oversees the Ebo Taylor Family Band with whom he makes cameo appearances.

As an arranger and bandleader, Taylor contributed to the marriage of highlife and afrobeat, collaborating with a young Fela Kuti when the two were students together in London in the early sixties.

Receiving his flowers for the 2010 album Love and Death on Strut Records, Taylor is cited by today’s torchbearers of afrobeat, Kokoroko, as a primary influence.

It is for this reason that Taylor’s new album, a rough around the edges collaboration with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad on their Los Angeles label Jazz is Dead, listens more like a footnote and is best taken as a starting point to dig into his remarkable archive.

Recorded on the occasion of Taylor’s first ever visit to the US, JID022 sees Taylor mostly reworking old material in Younge’s Linear Labs studio and is produced with a lo-fi, analogue aesthetic that doesn’t represent Taylor or the band at their best.

Opening with the psychedelic funk of “Get Up”, the band, which includes Taylor’s son Henry Taylor, cooks from the jump, with swelling hammond and muddy sounding drums anchoring a basic funk jam, with little of Taylor’s noted lyricism, but nonetheless some tasty horn solos.

Don’t attempt to adjust your speakers, as the fuzz and overload is intentional, as “Obra Akyedzi”, which comes next, makes apparent. Unfortunately, Taylor appears as if he is struggling to be heard over the band, and his voice sounds tired throughout.

Singing in English and Fante, Taylor’s lyrical preoccupations are unchanged though with “Beye Bu, Beye Ba” testifying how God provides for his people and “Kusi Na Sibo” gifting life lessons on gratitude.

At just seven tracks, it’s somewhere between an EP and a long player. Best thought of as a document of Ebo’s overdue first visit to the United States and one for collectors of Jazz is Dead’s catalogue, hopefully, the album will encourage listeners encountering Taylor perhaps for the first time to go deeper.

JID022 by Ebo Taylor, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad is out now via Jazz Is Dead.
You can stream, listen to it and get your copy of the album HERE