Perhaps best known for his songwriting contributions to Cream's Wheels of Fire album, but a supremely talented jazz pianist in his own right, Mike Taylor was born in Ealing, West London, and was already a gifted player when he joined the Royal Air Force in the early '50s, playing in several ad hoc bands and determining then that he wanted to become a jazz musician. Taylor spent much of the late '50s in a succession of professional and amateur bands, and it was the early '60s before he branched out to form his own eponymous group, alongside trombonist John Mumford and trumpeters Chris Bateson and Frank Powell. The group earned instant attention; as fascinated by musical theory as he was actually playing, Taylor was forever hatching new musical ideas and notions that he was desperate to try out in public. Few were at all commercial -- many club owners simply refused to rebook the trio once they'd heard the music.

Taylor, however, persevered and, in late summer 1962, he met two players who instinctively understood where he was headed: bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker, members at that time of the ad hoc Don Rendell Jazz Band. John Mumford was also involved; it was he who introduced the pair to Taylor, and soon the Mike Taylor Trio was underway, rehearsing regularly at the leader's grandparents' house. Bruce and Baker would not remain alongside Taylor for long, however. By early 1963, they had teamed up with Graham Bond in a new band, the Organisation, a hardworking outfit that rapidly came to occupy all their waking hours. Taylor, however, did not overly mourn their departure. Aware now of the distinct possibilities that a tight, well-rehearsed, and instinctively spontaneous band could hold (and passing through a handful of intermediate lineups first), Taylor finally replaced the errant pair with the almost equally monumental pairing of bassist Tony Reeves and drummer Jon Hiseman.