"(...) Anyway, even if
recommended for years by Universal, today not even Pendulum is
available in the shops, another bitter twist of fate making Taylor's
work unobtainable for jazz fans. A work that someone, somewhere,
seems to wish vanished with him in the Leigh-on-Sea waters...
All we can do is to
embark on a probably fruitless search for one of the few original
vinyl copies still around as some years ago Japanese jazz collector
Koro Ito did, who has a collection of more than 18.000 long-playing
records.
His demise which was
likely to have been an accident, holds an unexpected coup de
théatre. is really an incredible story, in line with the short
history of Mike Taylor's life.
Steve Pank says: “It
was when I was working at the Middle Earth Club and Mike Taylor was
there. I knew that he had made some records. I said to him if you
bring a copy of your record in maybe we can get it played on the
sound system. Later he came in and handed me a copy of Trio. I
never did get it played, and the next I heard he had committed
suicide, so I could not return it”.
So Steve finds a copy
of Taylor's album at home, and some years later, in 2013, he finds it
again and asks Dave Tomlin if he wishes to have it.
“He replied that he
didn't have much storage space and that he had a copy of Pendulum
but didn't have a record player so he could not play it. His brother
had gone to a lot of trouble to get hold of it for him, so he felt
obliged to store it. I made the suggestion that he could sell it on
eBay. Later he told me that his brother was quite adept at dealing on
eBay and that his copy of Pendulum had been posted. It turned
into a bidding war between two gentlemen one in France and one in
Japan, and eventually Japanese man bought it for £400-£500”.
At this point Steve
decides to sell Trio on eBay...
“Dave took it and
sold it to the same Japanese man for around £200, and Dave offered
me half of the proceeds. Part of the deal was that Dave would make me
a copy on CD. This was the first time that Dave had heard Trio.
He was amazed at how good it was...”.
So Koro Ito became the
owner of the Trio which had been Mike's personal copy!
He says, “I nearly
fell to the floor in a faint when I realised that Mike Taylor had
actually touched it”."
(excerpt from my book "Out of Nowhere")
Here's below Mike's personal copy of the record (courtesy of Koro Ito):
