Craig Taborn

According to Jazz Police, Taborn is "basically shy" and prefers to "let his music do the talking", which is why he "doesn' t have, or want, his own website". He also has a minimal social media presence and controls all of his US bookings personally. Some of his friends told The New York Times author of a 2017 profile piece on Taborn "how relieved they were that someone, at last, was profiling him, as if he were being forced out of hiding".

In 2014, Taborn was given a Doris Duke Artist Award, worth up to $275,000 and given to "exemplary individual artists in contemporary dance, jazz, theatre and related interdisciplinary work who have proven their artistic vitality and commitment to their field."

A further ECM album, Chants, led by Taborn and with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Gerald Cleaver, was released in 2013. This was the trio's first release after eight years together. At this point, Taborn's comments on composition and group performance were: "I knew that if I created a context and then deferred, fully, to Gerald's and Thomas's sensibilities it would inherently be stimulating and would also challenge the context. [...] I'd much rather engage with the group, always, than have the format be 'piano adventures with supporting cast'." This band began a tour of Europe in 2014, but Cleaver was replaced by J.T. Bates part of the way through it, owing to illness. Earlier the same year, Taborn played in a small group led by guitarist Bill Frisell. Taborn played as part of the Ches Smith Trio late in 2014 and toured with the percussionist and Mat Maneri early in 2016. His sixth album as leader, Flaga: Book of Angels Volume 27, was released in 2016. The trio recording, with Christian McBride on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, employed compositions by John Zorn. Taborn's next ECM album was the quartet Daylight Ghosts, which combined electronic and acoustic elements. This was followed by a string of duo albums: Octopus with Kris Davis from 2016; Highsmith with Ikue Mori in 2017; and The Transitory Poems with Iyer from 2018.

In 2011, Down Beat magazine chose Taborn as winner of the electric keyboard category, as well as rising star in both the piano and organ categories. By mid-2017, Taborn had released nine albums as leader or co-leader, and had appeared on more than ninety as a sideman.

Taborn's range of playing styles was summarized by Mike Hobart in The Financial Times: Taborn "draws obliquely on the jazz tradition [...] he is as at home in free improvisation as he is in composition". In an interview for Down Beat in 2011, Taborn described his improvising style, particularly for solo piano. When playing, he often adopts a modular approach, using small units of melody and rhythm and then developing them. This can begin from as little as three notes, with structure being built around referring back to elements of the units. He starts simply, using basic elements such as major and minor thirds, varies them in turn, and then continues to expand to create larger structures. He uses a combination of his attack and the piano's sustain pedal to draw attention to the upper partials of a note; this allows a heightened contrast between notes to be perceived.

In the early 2010s, Taborn continued playing and recording with others, but also had more solo concerts than earlier in his career. He had a solo tour of Europe in 2010, which may have led to an agreement with ECM to record his first solo piano album, Avenging Angel, which was released in 2011. In critic Nate Chinen's view, this album concentrated on "pure sound", being "full of moments where a note hangs sharply in the air, and you hear the gathering overtones, the vibrations of the strings". The album helped Taborn get more attention as a leader.

In 2010, Taborn also toured Europe with Anker's trio, Potter's Underground, and played piano duets with Vijay Iyer. In the following year, Taborn again performed with Stańko, as part of drummer Paul Motian's quartet, and had another solo tour of Europe. Taborn toured internationally with his own trio, Anker's trio, and with Dave Holland's quartet Prism in 2012, and remained part of Holland's band into 2014.

In 2009 and 2010, Down Beat critics selected Taborn as the electric keyboard rising star winner. In 2011, he was chosen as winner of the electric keyboard category, as well as rising star in both the piano and organ categories. In 2012, he was given the North Sea Jazz Festival's Paul Acket Award, which is presented "to an artist deserving wider recognition for extraordinary musicianship". JazzTimes ranked Taborn in their 2013 critics' poll as best piano player. In 2014, the Jazz Journalists Association awarded him the Pianist of the Year award.

After joining Michael Formanek's quartet in 2008, Taborn recorded under the double bassist's leadership for the first time the following year. Also in 2009, Taborn played with trumpeter Tomasz Stańko in New York, and returned to Europe for concerts with Torn, violinist Dominique Pifarély, and with his own trio.

Taborn played with Chris Potter from around 2005, and toured Europe with the saxophonist's Underground band early in 2007. The pianist played the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2007. In late 2007 and early 2008, Taborn toured internationally with Underground, guitarist David Torn's Prezens, as well as being part of shorter tours and making occasional appearances with Cleaver, Gress, Ibarra, Mitchell, and William Parker. In April 2008 he toured Europe with Berne's Science Friction, was back in Europe for the first three weeks of the following month, this time as part of David Binney's quartet, and returned there in November with Potter. Taborn remarked in 2008 that he was attempting to phase out his use of a laptop in performance, to allow him to concentrate more on improvising, and that he had delayed further performances as a leader, owing to finances. In the same year, he commented on the number of regular, working bands he was a member of: "You could say 15 to 20. But if you're talking about the ones that are regularly working right now, I'd have to say seven or eight."

Taborn's third release as a leader was Junk Magic in 2004, again for Thirsty Ear, with tenor saxophonist Aaron Stewart, violist Mat Maneri and drummer Dave King. The album's title was also the name of the band, which was formed to be Taborn's electronic group, allowing him to explore the interactions of composition, improvisation and electronics. Texture and pulse were important contributors to the overall sound.

In 2001, Taborn made his second recording as leader: Light Made Lighter, for Thirsty Ear, with Chris Lightcap on bass and Cleaver on drums. "On the strength of this recording", wrote the Los Angeles Times reviewer, "Taborn emerges as one of the most exciting pianists to lead a band since the ascent of Matthew Shipp". Another reviewer commented that "Taborn seems to revel in the cracks the way [Thelonious] Monk did, hitting the awkward-sounding notes between the notes to punctuate his lines".

In the 2000s, "Taborn became one of the most in-demand musicians in New York", in the words of one biographer. He played and recorded with a large, diverse range of musicians, in both free jazz and more mainstream bands, and playing various keyboard and electronic instruments. One critic observed that a lot of his collaborations in the early and mid-2000s did not feature a bassist, and suggested that Taborn's "dexterity and inventiveness [...] stand in for both a keyboard and a bass player." In 2001, he had his first solo concert in New York, and made his first recordings under the leadership of saxophonist Tim Berne, and with a trio led by percussionist Susie Ibarra. On these, he employed electronics as well as piano. Taborn went on to record, during the period 2002–04, as a sideman under the leadership of Steve Coleman, Dave Douglas, Marty Ehrlich, Drew Gress, Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, and others. In 2003, Taborn toured Europe with Ibarra's band, and played with saxophonist Lotte Anker for the first time.

Frequent performances and tours with Carter and others meant that Taborn's studies were delayed: he graduated from university with a BA in general studies (rather than the intended English literature) in April 1995, after which he moved to New York. He continued playing with Carter into 1998. In the late 1990s, Taborn also recorded with saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell (Taborn's first appearance on the ECM label), and for techno producer Carl Craig's album Programmed as part of Innerzone Orchestra.

Taborn's first recording as leader came in 1994, and was released by DIW. Craig Taborn Trio, with bassist Jaribu Shahid and drummer Tani Tabbal, featured Taborn playing in a range of styles on piano and included several of his own compositions. At this stage in his career, his comments on his tastes in composition and performance were: "Even though I like avant garde jazz and classical music, I like to swing. I like to work with harmony and melody in my own music, and I like acoustical instruments. But I can be quite dictatorial about the composed section, and lay down in great detail what everyone is supposed to do and how they should do it."

Taborn studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from 1988. He auditioned for the jazz program in the university's School of Music, but joined the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Taborn met drummer Gerald Cleaver soon after arriving at university, and they established an electronic group, the Tracey Science Quartet. Taborn also played with Marcus Belgrave and Wendell Harrison. While still a university student, he became known for his membership of saxophonist James Carter's band, where he contributed to a series of albums, beginning with JC on the Set, which was recorded in 1993.

Craig Marvin Taborn (/ˈ t eɪ ˌ b ɔː r n / ; born February 20, 1970) is an American pianist, organist, keyboardist and composer. He works solo and in bands, mostly playing various forms of jazz. He started playing piano and Moog synthesizer as an adolescent and was influenced at an early stage by a wide range of music, including by the freedom expressed in recordings of free jazz and contemporary classical music.