Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor (July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010)

A jazz activist, Taylor sat on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America, an organisation he founded in 1989, with Ann Ruckert, Herb Storfer and Phoebe Jacobs, to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, later including musicians who survived Hurricane Katrina.

Taylor was a jazz educator, who lectured in colleges, served on panels and travelled worldwide as a jazz ambassador. Critic Leonard Feather once said, "It is almost indisputable that Dr. Billy Taylor is the world's foremost spokesman for jazz." but moved to Washington, D.C., when he was five years old. He grew up in a musical family and learned to play different instruments as a child, including guitar, drums and saxophone. He was most successful at the piano, and had classical piano lessons with Henry Grant, who had educated Duke Ellington a generation earlier. Taylor made his first professional appearance playing keyboard at the age of 13 and was paid one dollar.

Taylor attended Dunbar High School, the U.S.'s first high school for African American students. He attended Virginia State College and majored in sociology. During his time, he joined Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Pianist Undine Smith Moore noticed young Taylor's talent in piano and he changed his major to music, graduating with a degree in music in 1942.

Taylor returned to New York later that year and cooperated with Bob Wyatt and Sylvia Syms at the Royal Roost jazz club and Billie Holiday in a successful show called Holiday on Broadway. A year later, he became the house pianist at Birdland and performed with Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich were just a few of the musicians who played on the show.

In 1964, he established Jazzmobile in New York City as a way to promote jazz through educational programmes. In 1981, Jazzmobile produced a jazz special for National Public Radio, for which the programme received the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting Programs.

Later career

In 1981, after being profiled by CBS News Sunday Morning, Taylor was hired as an on-air correspondent and then conducted more than 250 interviews with musicians. He received an Emmy Award for his segment on the multi-talented Quincy Jones.

In 1989, Taylor formed his own "Taylor Made" record label to document his own music. You Tempt Me (1996), by his 1985 trio (with Victor Gaskin and drummer Curtis Boyd), includes a rendition of Ellington's/Strayhorn's "Take the "A" Train". White Nights (1991) has Taylor, Gaskin, and drummer Bobby Thomas performing live from Leningrad in the Soviet Union. Then came Solo (1992), and Jazzmobile Allstars (1992). In 1997, he received the New York State Governor's Art Award.

Taylor suffered from a 2002 stroke, which affected his right hand, but he continued to perform almost until his death. He died after a heart attack on December 28, 2010, in Manhattan at the age of 89.

His legacy was honored in a Harlem memorial service on January 11, 2011, featuring performances by Taylor's final working trio – bassist Chip Jackson and drummer Winard Harper – along with long-time Taylor associates Jimmy Owens, Frank Wess, Geri Allen, Christian Sands and vocalist Cassandra Wilson. Taylor was survived by his wife of 65 years, Theodora Castion Taylor; a daughter, Kim Taylor-Thompson; and a granddaughter. His son, artist Duane Taylor, died in 1988.

Legacy Taylor appeared on hundreds of albums and composed more than 300 songs during his career, which spanned over six decades. His 1963 song "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free",

Engaging and educating more audience and young people was a central part of Taylor's career. He was the Wilbur D. Barrett Chair of Music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale. Besides publishing instructional books on jazz, he taught jazz courses at Howard University, Long Island University, the Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he had studied under Roland Wiggins and earned his master's degree and EdD degree in Music Education in 1975.

His extensive appearance in television series and jazz educational programs brought the music he loved to the masses at the grassroots level as well as more formal arenas. He was sometimes better known as a television personality than a pianist. He was quoted in a 2007 article in the Post Magazine: "there's no question that being an advocate eclipsed my reputation as a musician. It was my doing. I wanted to prove to people that jazz has an audience. I had to do that for me." Down Beat magazine's Lifetime Achievement award (1984), National Medal of Arts (1992), and the Tiffany Award (1991). In 1981, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Berklee College of Music.

He was honored in 2001 with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award, and election to the Hall of Fame for the International Association for Jazz Education. He served as artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he developed many critically acclaimed concert series, including the Louis Armstrong Legacy series, and the annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. In addition, he performed at the White House seven times and was one of only three jazz musicians to be appointed to the National Council of the Arts.

Taylor was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

Discography

As leader 1945: Billy Taylor Piano (Savoy) 1951: Piano Panorama (Atlantic and 1957 as most of The Billy Taylor Touch) 1952: Jazz At Storyville (Roost 1952) 1953: Billy Taylor Trio (Prestige) 1953–54: Cross Section (Prestige) – released 1956 (includes all tracks from Billy Taylor Plays for DJs) 1954: The Billy Taylor Trio with Candido (Prestige) 1954: Billy Taylor Trio at Town Hall (Prestige) (Status 1965) 1955: A Touch of Taylor (Prestige) 1956: Evergreens (ABC-Paramount) 1956: Billy Taylor at the London House (ABC-Paramount) 1957: Introduces Ira Sullivan (ABC-Paramount) 1957: My Fair Lady Loves Jazz (ABC-Paramount; Impulse! 1965, ABC Impulse! 1968) 1957: The Billy Taylor Touch (Atlantic) - featuring tracks recorded in 1951 and 1957 1957: The New Billy Taylor Trio (ABC-Paramount) 1959: One for Fun (Atlantic) 1959: Billy Taylor with Four Flutes (Riverside; with Frank Wess, Herbie Mann and Jerome Richardson) 1959: Taylor Made Jazz (Argo) 1960: Uptown (Riverside) 1960: Warming Up! (Riverside) - also released as Custom Taylored (SeSac) and Easy Like (Surrey) 1961: Interlude (Prestige Moodsville) 1961: Kwamina (Mercury) 1962: Impromptu (Mercury) 1963: Right Here, Right Now! (Capitol) 1965: Midnight Piano (Capitol) 1968: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Tower) 1969: Sleeping Bee (MPS) - also released as Billy Taylor Today (Prestige) 1970: Ok Billy (Bell) 1977: Jazz Live (Monmouth Evergreen) 1977: Live at Storyville (1977 recording for West 54 Records) 1981: With Joe Kennedy Where've You Been (Concord Jazz) 1985: You Tempt Me (Taylor-Made, 1989) 1988: White Nights And Jazz in Leningrad (Taylor-Made) 1988: Solo (Taylor-Made) 1989: Billy Taylor and the Jazzmobile All Stars (Taylor-Made) 1991: White Nights and Jazz in Leningrad (Taylor-Made) 1992: Dr. T with Gerry Mulligan (GRP Records) 1993: Live at MCG with Gerry Mulligan, Carl Allen, Chip Jackson 1993: It's a Matter of Pride (GRP) 1995: Homage (GRP) 1997: The Music Keeps Us Young (Arkadia Jazz) 1999: Ten Fingers – One Voice (Arkadia Jazz) 1999: Taylor Made at the Kennedy Center with Dee Dee Bridgewater (Kennedy Center Jazz) 2001: Urban Griot (Soundspot) 2002: Live at AJE New York (Soundspot)

As sideman With Arkadia Jazz All Stars Thank You, Duke! With Johnny Hartman Once in Every Life (Bee Hive, 1980) With Coleman Hawkins Timeless Jazz (Jazztone, 1954) With Mundell Lowe A Grand Night for Swinging (Riverside, 1957) With the Metronome All-Stars Metronome All-Stars 1956 (Clef, 1956) With Sal Salvador Juicy Lucy (Bee Hive, 1978) With Sonny Stitt The Matadors Meet the Bull (Roulette, 1965) What's New!!! (Roulette, 1966) With Lucky Thompson Accent on Tenor Sax (Urania 1954) With Various Artists Charlie Parker 10th Memorial Concert (Limelight Records, 1965) "Jazz Tones" with Coleman Hawkins,1954, reissued 1984 Xanadu Records