For anyone who’s seen saxophonist Paul Taylor perform live, they know that he burns up the stage, as reflected in the title of his eighth CD, Burnin’, released on July 21st. Burnin’ is a slight departure for Taylor, as the entire album has a very retro feel to it, partly due to the fact that Taylor plays tenor sax instead of his usual alto or soprano saxes. It’s a great new sound for him, and to find out more about the new CD, we caught up with Taylor backstage before his July 9th performance at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, where he co-headlined with Alex Bugnon.

Smoothviews (SV): Burnin’ has a very retro, 70s feel to it. Was that the goal when you first started writing the CD, or did it evolve that way as you wrote?
Paul Taylor (PT): Exactly, it’s the way it developed after the first day or so. I had no idea it would take that little journey. It’s a funny story how it started. I flew to New York to write with Barry Eastmond in New York, and I usually play alto and soprano sax, but I’d gotten a tenor sax a few years ago and I’d been working on that over the years, but not really revealing it or playing it in public, so I figured it was time now to at least bring it to the sessions and see what happens because I was feeling good with the way it sounded. On the plane, the soprano got bumped somehow, I don’t know, in the bin, I don’t know. It’s an anomaly. And when I took it out at Barry’s, picked it up [mimics blowing on the sax with no noise coming out], it wasn’t playing, air was leaking out, I couldn’t use it. You get bummed out and you can’t use what you wanted to use, so we said, “Well, let’s get this tenor out and give this tenor a try. Why not? I brought it all the way over here, so we’ll try some stuff on tenor.” And so we just started working on a song, and then another song, and it was going good, and we had some good songs and I felt really comfortable with the songs we were writing, and so Barry just said, “Well, let’s keep on going with the tenor sound.” So it’s kind of like a retro, vintage kind of sound – retro, old “back in the day” kind of sound, so we just kept rolling with that. That’s how, basically, we decided to go with that, and when I wrote with Rex [Rideout] in L.A., I told him that Barry and I had been writing on tenor, kind of like the vintage, old school sound, so let’s kind of go in that direction, and that’s how it got the sound it has.

SV: The songs on Burnin’ are produced by Barry Eastmond and Rex Rideout, who you’ve worked with several times in the past. What makes them producers who you want to continue working with?
PT: They’re just such excellent producers. They really don’t get in the way of…well, they work really good at least with me – I know they work really well with other artists too – they’re just really good at what they do and make me feel really comfortable. Just like a really good puzzle, the pieces fit really good like that, and I just feel comfortable writing with them. Say, if I get a little mind block going on, in the meantime they can just hit the perfect little thing or little phrase that gets me out of that and keep on going with that. We just write really good music together, so that’s how it works. It’s all good!

SV: The song line-up on the CD alternates back and forth between the Eastmond and Rideout songs. Was that intentional?
PT: That was kind of organic too. Over the years doing records, it’s like a big thing who gets to sequence the record – what song goes first, second, third, whatever. In my beginning CDs, I got to do my own sequencing. Later on, with Peak Records and Andi Howard, she took the reins on one of the album, “No, Paul, I’m going to work on the sequencing.” “OK, go ahead.” So after that point, I just let them go ahead, and I just did the best songs we could do and let them go ahead and sequence it, find the single, and all of that. It was a funny thing this time, when we went to the mastering, we had no real order of sequence. I had a loose one in my mind, but Rex had just made a CD for the mastering engineer and just made a loose order. At the mastering session, Andi was there, my manager and Peak Records, and Rex came as well, and [Andi’s] listening to it the night before, and goes, “Oh, Paul, whoever sequenced this and made the order, it’s great. Let’s go with that.” So that’s how the order came on that one.

SV: You’ve consistently released a CD every 2 years over the past decade. Do you ever feel any pressure to keep up that pace, and if so, how do you deal with the pressure?
PT: I think every two years is a really good period of time. I don’t really feel rushed at all. When the record comes out that first year, yeah, that’s your new record and you’re really going to be hitting the trail promoting it, gigging, whatever. Then the next year, you know you have another year to keep working it and ride on the crest of the wave, and in the meantime you’re going to be getting some stuff cooking for the next project. I think it’s the perfect amount of time, and I kind of like doing it like that. Before I leave here, I want to have a lot of CDs out, so right now, this will be the eighth CD, so that’s a good period of time. There was one period of time between my second and third CDs that went three years because I had to switch labels, and sometimes when you’re going through that, you don’t know if you’ll ever get a shot to come back again. Everything worked out good, and I got another label for, like, one album on Undercover, and then went back to two years in between again.

SV: You’ve avoided the trend that many artists are following in putting out CDs consisting almost entirely of cover tunes – you only have one cover on Burnin’. What are your thoughts about so many artists coming out with entire cover CDs in recent years?
PT: I love doing original music, definitely, because it’s coming from you or whoever you collaborate with. I do like covers as well, but not a whole album of them. I wouldn’t really rule out myself doing one. I won’t say, “I’m never going to do a cover album,” because, who knows, down the road I might do that. I have one cover song on a lot of my records, so maybe they’ll take all those cover songs and could make one album off of that. Generally, I think, you want to go original and maybe just throw in one.

SV: You recently started doing some “Gentlemen of the Night” shows with Michael Lington and Marion Meadows. What are those performances like?
PT: They’re fantastic! I think we’ve done three or four now, and we just kind of got it off the block and rolling. It’s so fun. No offense to all the other package tours I’ve done, but this is probably the most fun I’ve had so far doing any kind of package tour. Probably because we’re all saxophone players, we’re all around the same age, basically. We rehearsed the tour the night before we did our first show in Stockton [California], and fortunately, say you’re cramming in college for a big test the night before, and you wait too late and you just stay up all night and cram, usually you don’t remember that much of it – at least, I didn’t. In this case, the show went great. Everyone hit all our little points we wanted to do and stuff like that. It was really fun to do.

SV: Have the shows been well attended?
PT: They have been, yes. The one we just did Saturday in Newport Beach [California] was just about sold out.

SV: Are you bringing it East?
PT: We’re trying to get that momentum. Like I just said, we’ve done three or four, and we’re trying to tell everybody about it and get the word out. Fred Hanson from APA, the booking agent, he knows that we really want to keep doing it and he’s heard all of the feedback, so [leaning in to the microphone] Fred, get us more gigs, get us more gigs. We’ll get that stuff all going.

SV: What can we expect from your show tonight with Alex Bugnon?
PT: Oh, it’s going to be great! I’ve worked with Alex most of this year, and we have a little deal. Since Alex is based here in the east part of the country, that he brings his band and I play with his band, and when we get some stuff on the West Coast, we do the exact opposite. I’ll get my band together and we fly Alex out, and we do it that way. We really haven’t had any West Coast dates yet; we keep coming out East and playing with his band. I really love playing with Alex, and we’ve played many times before on Summer Storm with Norman Brown, his package tour. We just have a little more chance to play together more. We’ve definitely been vibin’ it really good, they play my songs really good. Unfortunately, we didn’t really get Burnin’ in from the new album. So sorry. We’re just getting the ones we have really tight now. We do “Ladies’ Choice,” and then, like, my classics like “Pleasure Seeker” and “Exotica” and one from Night Life which is “After Hours.” And then we collaborate on a cover song called “Yearn for Your Love,” you know, a really classic song. He plays a couple, I come in for a few. We do a little trade-off thing and then just collaborate at the end. But it’s fun, you know. So I have my PT shows, I have the Gentlemen of the Night shows, and then I have the Alex Bugnon [shows]. So between those three, I’m just trying to make it work and get out there, because the touring has kind of dropped off, I’m sure for everyone, during these economic times. Just trying to keep it going.

SV: We’ve discussed before the differences in crowd reaction in different cities. How much of a difference does the crowd really make to an artist’s performance?
PT: That’s part of life sometimes, you can never take something for granted, like that everyone’s going to be cheering from the high heavens from the first row. Sometimes you have some obstacles to go by and you just have to deal with it and keep your focus on what you’re doing, and hopefully by the end of the show, they will be doing that. By the end of the show, you’ll make some believers out of it, and people won’t be gabbing when you’re having a little soft passage and all that, and not let it intimidate you onstage and don’t let it throw you off your game.

SV: What’s next for you career-wise?
PT: I’m happy doing what I’m doing, I just want to do more of it. I want to keep on performing and keep on recording, and hopefully get a lot of gigs. Let’s get back to the tour bus days again, you know, where you just go out for a month or so.

SV: Any of the cruises coming up for you?
PT: No cruises right now. I did do one earlier, like a three-day Rippingtons Valentine’s cruise with Jeff Kashiwa. Maybe I’ll get some calls on that, hopefully, on the next one. I see on some cruises, they’ve already got the 2010 ones already booked. I wish I would’ve gotten a call, [leaning in closer to the microphone], I wish I would’ve gotten a call, hint, hint. But… We’ll see. If some other cruises come out, maybe they can put Paul Taylor on. If not, that’s alright, I’ll stay on land, that’s cool.

Other than that, working on the technical, production side, I’ve been trying to get my chops up producing-wise, so maybe I can do like a Taylor-made CD.

SV: Oh, I like that!
PT: Yeah, you got it here first.

SV: I know you’re a big Denver Broncos fan, so how do you think they’re going to do this season?
PT: I’m going to back off on the predictions because we lost our quarterback. We got a new coach and then Jay Cutler, they butted heads, and he split to Chicago, so I hope the best for them. I’m going to be rooting for them, whatever happens. When you lose your quarterback, you know… But we got some other good free agents in the mix, so maybe they’ll surprise everybody and walk away with it this year, you never know.

SV: Well those are all our questions. Thanks so much for making time for us.
PT: Oh, you guys are fun. Thanks.