Taste is the ability to play appropriately in a particular style or with a particular group. This aspect includes being able to play in both an idiomatic way, and a musical way. If you are a pianist at a jazz gig and start comping using an alberti bass (Mozart-esque) then you look foolish, in the same manner you do if you are a saxophone player at a gig and during a ballad you play a back-up line at a screamingly loud volume. They are both strong examples of poor taste.
Taste is something that can easily be developed once you put a little bit of thought into it. Most of the time it is a matter of asking a different question of yourself while you are playing. The typical question most musicians ask themselves is...
What am I going to play here?
As opposed to the question:
What is going to make this song sound better, and more in style with what everyone else is playing?
The difference in answers is that the first question implies that you are going to play something, meaning you are only focused on what you want to do. The second question forces you to focus on what else is going on at the time, and how your part is going to fit in with everything else.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing, lay out for a second and listen to what the music requires. Does it need a fill? Does it need another comping instrument? Or maybe a background voice?
I believe taste also refers to your ability to “play the same song” as everyone else in the band. This comes up especially during soloing. A lot of my work has been in cover bands and I often hear players taking these really harmonically advanced solos. Which in all respects are good solos, however, not over the simple tunes we are playing. It sounds as if we changed songs in the middle of the tune.
Often times people fail to use the musical vocabulary of the song into their solos, so it seems that they are playing a different song altogether. This is especially apparent if the rest of the band is playing in a different style or using a different musical vocabulary.
A final aspect of taste is simply knowing what your function is in the band. Which is a combination of knowing the style and listening to the ensemble. Lets use the example of playing a jazz swing tune with both a guitar and a pianist, if both players are freely comping and not interacting at all, there is no structure to what is going on, and the music is going to sound bad, regardless of the actual lines played. The reverse is also true that if both instruments are playing strict rhythmic patterns the song is going to sound boring and unimaginative. The ideal is of course for both players to be listening to one another and know and to change functions when necessary. Perhaps the guitar player should play on every quarter note (ala Freddie Green) and the pianist does the more rhythmically adventuresome comping or adding lines. Or maybe the pianist keeps a more strict and sparse rhythmic figure and the guitarist fills in more of the texture. There are many ways to solve these issues but they all rely on everyone having a rough plan and most importantly listening to what’s going on around them.
Developing taste is relatively easier than say developing technique, but equally as important and often overlooked. It requires that you consciously listen to the style you are performing, you are aware of what your function is in the band, and are matching what is going on around you when performing.
Simple as that, but unfortunately simple doesn’t always mean easy.
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Or you could just say to yourself... "Don't eff this up."
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