2017 · Album
Daylight Ghosts
Recorded 2017 · ECM Records · Produced by Not specified in provided sources
Four Players, One Room, Heat Rising
Taborn and company do so much more than melt cerebral sound in performance heat.
The strength of Daylight Ghosts (2017) lies in how completely these four musicians understood each other in real time. Craig Taborn at the piano, Chris Speed on clarinet, Chris Lightcap on bass guitar, and Dave King on drums spent time building something that sounds loose but demands total attention. The album doesn't announce itself. It settles in—sometimes tense, sometimes nearly still, always listening. Taborn's piano work here moves between delicate and driving, never settling into comfortable grooves. Speed's clarinet moves through the spaces like someone thinking out loud, and the rhythm section of Lightcap and King responds to every shift without lag.
Critics noticed what was actually happening. John Fordham wrote that only players with deep jazz insights and wide musical references could have made this album, and that landed because it's true—the restraint alone requires experience. The Irish Times' Cormac Larkin heard it as episodic, like an unsettling art film that glows with invention while staying grounded in jazz language predecessors would recognize. Michael Toland of Blurt called it a remarkable work that took Taborn's artistry to the next level.
This isn't a debut or a breakthrough—Taborn had already proven himself. But Daylight Ghosts stands as one of his strongest statements, the kind of album that rewards sustained listening more than casual play. It's the work of a mature musician still reaching, still refusing obvious moves. ECM's recording captures the space around the notes as much as the notes themselves, which matters here more than on most records.
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