Taylor, Billy (ii) in Oxford Music Online

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Taylor, Billy (ii)

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Taylor, Billy [William (Edward), Jr.] (ii)

(b Greenville, NC, 24 July 1921; d New York, 28 Dec 2010). American pianist, educator, and leader. His birthdate appeared incorrectly as 21 July in interviews published in 1980 and 1995; he confirmed that the correct date is 24 July, as many sources give it. He was brought up in Washington, DC, and took piano lessons from the age of seven. His family favored classical music, but an uncle introduced him to the music of the great jazz pianists, and he copied recordings by Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, and others. In high school he doubled as a tenor saxophonist, but, feeling overwhelmed by the abilities of schoolmate Frank Wess, soon abandoned that pursuit. While studying music at Virginia State College (BMEd 1942) he performed professionally; he sat in one evening with the Count Basie Orchestra and met Jo Jones, who became in effect his jazz mentor and a faithful supporter of his career. In 1944 Taylor moved to New York and immediately secured two brief but extraordinary engagements, playing with Ben Websters four-piece swing group at the Three Deuces and, while Webster was on break, with Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Pettifords bop quintet across the street at the Onyx (their intended pianist, Bud Powell, being highly unreliable). He worked as a freelance with John Kirby, Noble Sissle, Ethel Waters, and others, performed with Eddie South in both New York and Chicago (1944), and played in New York with Foots Thomas. In 1945 he joined Cozy Coles group including the bass player Billy Taylor (i) (no relation) in the show The Seven Lively Arts and performed and recorded with Stuff Smith. Early in 1946 he toured as a member of Slam Stewarts trio as a replacement for Erroll Garner. He was in Europe from autumn 1946 to spring 1947 with Don Redman and with small groups generated from this band (without Redman). On his return to New York, Taylor and Budd Johnson co-led a group with Kenny Dorham, John Collins, Lloyd Trotman, and Charlie Smith, and performed in Haiti at the National Exposition. Subsequently Taylor played with Machito and explored Latin jazz in his own groups. During the winter of 195051 Artie Shaw took over Taylors quartet; this edition of Shaws Gramercy Five played at the New York restaurant Iceland. In 1951 Taylor became house pianist at Birdland, where he supported Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker, and other soloists in all-star bop groups that usually incorporated a rhythm section of Taylor with Charles Mingus and Art Blakey, Oscar Pettiford and Jo Jones, or Pettiford and Blakey. From 1952 he performed principally as the leader of his own trio with the bass player Earl May (19519) and the drummers Charlie Smith (19524) and Ed Thigpen (19568). Taylors interest in jazz education was first manifested during the 1950s in four brief primers on jazz piano styles. In these years he also wrote magazine articles, lectured at music schools, held jazz workshops, and served as music director for the television series The Subject is Jazz (1958). Through these activities, and later, through his involvement in Jazzmobile, which he helped to establish in 1965, he became an articulate and respected spokesman for the arts in general and jazz in particular. In the early 1960s his trio (with sidemen Joe Benjamin and drummer Ray Moscow) performed only intermittently, while Taylor focused on work as a disc jockey in New York and continued his educational activities. He wrote one of the most influential political songs of the civil rights decade, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. From 1969 to 1972 he led an 11-piece band for the David Frost Show on television while working concurrently in jazz clubs in a trio with Bob Cranshaw (double bass) and Bobby (Robert) Thomas (Jr.) (drums). By the 1970s Taylor had written six further booklets on piano styles, combo arranging, and harmony. At the University of Massachusetts he earned a DME in 1975 for his dissertation, The History and Development of Jazz Piano: a New Perspective for Educators; he published a further work, Jazz Piano: History and Development, in 1982. He appeared in the film Shepherd of the Night Flock (1977), contributed regularly to Contemporary Keyboard magazine (May 1977September 1980),

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and was the founder and director of the radio program Jazz Alive! From 1981 through the 1990s he presented interviews and reports and played on CBS television, making regular appearances on Charles Kuralts show Sunday Morning. His trio continued with the bass player Victor Gaskin and the drummers Thomas, Freddie Waits (c1980), Keith Copeland (1980s), and Thomas again (c1988 to the early 1990s). Taylor served as an American cultural representative in the Soviet Union (summers 19878). He joined the faculty of the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University, while keeping up a wide lecturing and performing schedule and remaining devoted to the Jazzmobile. In 1988 he founded his own record label, Taylor Made, and received a Jazz Masters fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. By the 1990s he held the Wilber D. Barrett chair at the University of Massachusetts, and in 1994 his career was celebrated at Carnegie Hall in Billy Taylor: My First 50 Years in Jazz during the JVC Jazz Festival. Around this time Chip Jackson replaced Gaskin in his trio; his drummers were Carl Allen and then Steve Johns. He continued to host new series for National Public Radio, including Billy Taylors Jazz from the Kennedy Center (from October 1994); an appearance at Jazz Plaza in Havana, Cuba, in December 1997 was among his ongoing festival tours. In the 1990s Taylor also devoted considerable attention to ambitious compositions; his works include the Suite for Jazz Piano and Orchestra (1973), Homage, Siesta: Tucson (both c1990), Conversations (c1991), and Step into my Dream (c1994). Materials relating to his career are at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC (see LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES, 2). Oral history material in DSI (JOHP) and NjR; video oral history material in NCH (HCJA).

Bibliography
S. A. Pease: Taylor: One of the Creators among the Progressives, DB, xvii/16 (1950), 12 A. Hodeir: Critics Reply to Billy Taylor, DB, xxii/22 (1955), 34 B. Nicholls: Billy Taylor, Music Mirror, iii/10 (1956), 12 B. Taylor: Progressive Jazz, DB, xxiii/5 (1956), 11 D. Gold: Billy Taylor, DB, xxv/1 (1958), 16 F. H. Mitchell: A Matter of Ego, DB, xxviii/22 (1961), 22 D. Morgenstern: Taylor-made Frostings, DB, xxxviii/5 (1971), 18 A. Shaw: The Street that Never Slept: New Yorks Fabled 52nd Street (New York, 1971/R1977 as 52nd Street: the Street of Jazz) W. Fowler: How to Complete the Spectrum of your Music Education, DB, xli/7 (1974), 36 L. Lyons: Billy Taylor: Jazz Pianist, PhD, CK, ii/6 (1976), 18 Z. Knauss: Conversations with Jazz Musicians (Detroit, 1977), 202 A. J. Smith: Jazzmobile: Billy Taylor and Dave Bailey, Magnetizing the Arts, DB, xliv/20 (1977), 14 W. A. Brower: Jazz Alive!: Ad-free Radio Taylored for you, DB, xlvi/9 (1979), 18 B. Parker-Sparrow: Billy Taylor Presents Americas Classical Music, DB, xlvii/5 (1980), 24 L. P. Bass: Marathon Man of Jazz Education, Music Educators Journal, lxviii/5 (1982), 31 L. Lyons: The Great Jazz Pianists, Speaking of their Lives and Music (New York, 1983), 176 J. Roberts: Billy Taylor: Primarily Piano, DB, lii/3 (1985), 26 J. Simmen: Les Billy Taylor, BHcF, no.351 (1987), 1

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K. Kevorkian: Billy Taylor: New Frontiers for the Ambassador of Jazz, Keyboard, xv/2 (1989), 32 P. Elwood: Billy Taylor Keyed in on a Grand Scale, San Francisco Examiner (26 May 1991) J. McDonough: Billy Taylor: the Players Advocate, DB, lviii/2 (1991), 28 [incl. discography] K. Franckling: Billy Taylors 50 Years in Jazz, JT, xxiii/2 (1993), 32 Z. Stewart: Riffs: Pianist Taylor Notches 50 Years of Jazz Mobility, DB, lxi/3 (1994), 11 Z. Anglesey: Riffs: Taylor Tapes Radio Shows at Kennedy Center, DB, lxii/12 (1995), 12 P. Matthews: Billy Taylor: Interview, Cadence, xxi (1995), no.10, 19; no.11, 21; no.12, 5; xxii (1996), no.1, 19; no.2, 11; no.3, 10 E. Rideout: Billy Taylor: 75 Years of Art and Advocacy, Keyboard, xxiii/4 (1997), 56

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