Sparkling Jazz | Doc City: Welcome to Doc City (Deluxe Edition) (Independent / 27 January 2023)

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Sparkling Jazz
Doc City: Welcome to Doc City (Deluxe Edition)
(Independent / 27 January 2023)

A sparkling sound and accomplished jazz and RnB chops are the draw on this album by Doc City, aka Clarence Taylor, MD. Doc City is the musical alias of Clarence Taylor, MD. The son of a Baptist minister from Cleveland, gospel music and spirituals were his musical foundation. Alongside his medical career, he's won awards for his music over the years.

He collaborates with a host of session masters on his latest release, including people like Lafayette Carthon (piano), who, as an esteemed musician, author and pastor, bridges both of Doc's worlds. The full list is here.

Using various vocalists, he achieves a range of moods and modes, from strident to the sensitive and expressive. In When You Are Near, instrumentation is lush, with strings and muted trumpet to underpin the melody. What Love Is broadcasts a slow and sexy groove that wouldn't have been amiss in the 1970s or 80s, and channels Barry White in that mix of jazz RnB. 

Doc City

While he wrote most of the songs on the album, he does a nicely jazzed up version of the Sade hit, Sweetest Taboo, playing with the rhythms, and adding harmony vocals that give it another dimension.

Your Ego Too is a highlight of the release, with its churchy organ and swing. The percussionists on the album deserve special kudos of their own. What I'll Do is a classic RnB duet with a slow build.

If old school jazzy rhythm and blues are your jam, you won't go wrong with this release.

With Doc on keyboards and vocals, he's joined by Featured Artists:

  • Sean Jones - trumpet (Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Nancy Wilson, Diane Reeves)
  • Lafayette Carthon -piano (Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, The Winans)
  • Steve Cox -piano, Moog (Dazz Band, Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks, Allison Krauss)
  • Steve Mackey -bass (Peter Frampton, India Irie, Keb Mo, Dolly Parton)
  • Kenney Anderson - sax (Gloria Estavan and Miami Sound Machine, Bobby Caldwell)
  • Jamey Haddad - percussion (Paul Simon, Carly Simon, Steve Gadd, YoYo Ma)

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