A native of Lynchburg, VA with over 30 years experience as a professional performing musician and entertainer, Lew Taylor is one of Central Virginia’s most versatile musicians. After attending the College of Music and Fine Arts at Howard University, he then joined the United States Air Force Band where he received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Air Force Commendation Medal for Outstanding Service. With the USAF Band, Lew Taylor honed skills as a keyboardist specializing in pop, jazz and R&B styles, and as an arranger for groups ranging in size from 60-piece concert orchestras to 16-piece jazz big bands to trios and duos. Lew also has many years of experience as a vocalist, accompanying himself on piano or guitar.

Lew has also worked with Royal Caribbean and Premier Cruise Lines, with whom he formed and led several musical groups, and he has toured across the United States, Europe, Mexico, Canada and Pacific Rim countries.

Lew Taylor currently resides in Lynchburg where he leads a number of performing bands, including The Lew Taylor Trio, a three-piece jazz group specializing in high energy contemporary jazz; Jazmine, a traditional jazz quartet; and Groove Central, an eclectic group featuring a variety of musical genres and styles. He is the musical director, keyboardist and vocalist in the Charlottesville-based group Ignition, and keyboardist with Charlottesville-based Elegance, both society bands which perform for A-list private events.

He holds down the piano seat in the Lynchburg College Community Big Band under the directorship of Dr. Chris Magee.  Lew also is a founding member of Green Earrings, a nationally performing Steely Dan tribute band, of which he is also keyboardist, vocalist, and music director. He performs periodically with the Roanoke-based Original Royal Kings, which performs classic rock and soul hits from the 1960s and ’70s.

Lew has composed scores for stage productions, including the adaptation of David Woulff’s novel “As I Stood At The Gate” and the stage production of “Nu Naybahood II…Here We Go Agin”, an adaptation of Grammy Award-winning percussionist D. Munyango Jackson’s book “The Nu Naybahood Funetic Ebonic Dictionary Vol. 1”, a satirical compilation of contemporary urban African-American speech and dialect patterns.