(October _, 2019) Lars Taylor was born in Switzerland, but he spent a portion of his childhood in Brazil, and that country along with its music never left him. He often found comfort and inspiration in bossa nova and samba, and was fluent in Portuguese at an early age. Unfortunately, Taylor’s family confronted the negative aspects of a country where the high level of social and economic inequality led to crime. Taylor’s family decided to return to Europe after Taylor and his mother witnessed a particularly brazen bank robbery in 1984.
By that time Taylor had been playing the piano for about seven years. But he switched to guitar and would eventually embark on a career that saw him as a member of a rock band, work as a session musician, and ultimately as the jazz musician who drops the contemporary jazz tune “Sweet Onion” that is featured in this First Listen.
While Taylor and his family decamped from Brazil in the early 1980s, and he spent most of his career performing in Europe, the music of Brazil remained with him, and the bossa nova influences can be heard in his acoustic guitar playing on “Sweet Onion.” Check it out here.
Lars Taylor – “Sweet Onion”
