Tanner Taylor

This week's MinnPost column features Tanner Taylor, a young pianist who hails from Iowa and has been burning up keyboards all over Minneapolis/St. Paul since relocating here seven years ago. I enjoy hearing him play, other musicians respect him, and he works hard. I was glad to have the chance to write about him.

During our telephone interview, I asked him about something I had read on Jazz Police: that his first inspiration to try jazz came "after seeing The Glenn Miller Story when I was twelve."

Yes, he said, that's true.



I had seen the movie (1954, directed by Anthony Mann, starring James Stewart and June Allyson) for the first time a few weeks earlier and decided to share something I had learned from the post-film commentary.

"You know," I babbled, "there's this new theory about how Glenn Miller died—that his plane was hit by a bomb dropped by a British plane returning home from France. Rather than land in England with live bombs, they dropped them into the Channel."

[Pause.]

"Actually," Tanner said, "there are three theories about how he died. I'm a huge Glenn Miller fan."

Note to self: Resist the urge to tell musicians things they probably already know.



Photos by John Whiting taken during three different performances. (Tanner's ever-changing facial hair is a topic of conversation among the ladies who go to hear him play.)