Billy Taylor, (II) in Oxford Music Online

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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; heconfirmed that the correct date is 24 July, as many sources give it. He was brought up inWashington, 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 FatsWaller, Teddy Wilson, and others. In high school he doubled as a tenor saxophonist, but, feelingoverwhelmed by the abilities of schoolmate Frank Wess, soon abandoned that pursuit. Whilestudying music at Virginia State College (BMEd 1942) he performed professionally; he sat in oneevening with the Count Basie Orchestra and met Jo Jones, who became in effect his jazz mentorand a faithful supporter of his career.

In 1944 Taylor moved to New York and immediately secured two brief but extraordinaryengagements, playing with Ben Webster’s four-piece swing group at the Three Deuces and, whileWebster was on break, with Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Pettiford’s bop quintet across the street atthe Onyx (their intended pianist, Bud Powell, being highly unreliable). He worked as a freelance withJohn Kirby, Noble Sissle, Ethel Waters, and others, performed with Eddie South in both New Yorkand Chicago (1944), and played in New York with Foots Thomas. In 1945 he joined Cozy Cole’sgroup – including the bass player Billy Taylor (i) (no relation) – in the show The Seven Lively Artsand performed and recorded with Stuff Smith. Early in 1946 he toured as a member of SlamStewart’s trio as a replacement for Erroll Garner. He was in Europe from autumn 1946 to spring1947 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, JohnCollins, 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 thewinter of 1950–51 Artie Shaw took over Taylor’s quartet; this edition of Shaw’s Gramercy Fiveplayed at the New York restaurant Iceland. In 1951 Taylor became house pianist at Birdland, wherehe 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 ofTaylor 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(1951–9) and the drummers Charlie Smith (1952–4) and Ed Thigpen (1956–8).

Taylor’s interest in jazz education was first manifested during the 1950s in four brief primers on jazzpiano styles. In these years he also wrote magazine articles, lectured at music schools, held jazzworkshops, 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 toestablish in 1965, he became an articulate and respected spokesman for the arts in general andjazz 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 andcontinued his educational activities. He wrote one of the most influential political songs of the civilrights decade, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. From 1969 to 1972 he led an 11-pieceband for the “David Frost Show” on television while working concurrently in jazz clubs in a trio withBob 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 andDevelopment of Jazz Piano: a New Perspective for Educators; he published a further work, JazzPiano: History and Development, in 1982. He appeared in the film Shepherd of the Night Flock(1977), contributed regularly to Contemporary Keyboard magazine (May 1977–September 1980),

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and was the founder and director of the radio program “Jazz Alive!” From 1981 through the 1990she presented interviews and reports and played on CBS television, making regular appearances onCharles Kuralt’s show “Sunday Morning.” His trio continued with the bass player Victor Gaskin andthe drummers Thomas, Freddie Waits (c1980), Keith Copeland (1980s), and Thomas again (c1988to the early 1990s).

Taylor served as an American cultural representative in the Soviet Union (summers 1987–8). Hejoined the faculty of the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University, while keeping up a widelecturing and performing schedule and remaining devoted to the Jazzmobile. In 1988 he founded hisown record label, Taylor Made, and received a Jazz Masters fellowship from the NationalEndowment for the Arts. By the 1990s he held the Wilber D. Barrett chair at the University ofMassachusetts, and in 1994 his career was celebrated at Carnegie Hall in “Billy Taylor: My First 50Years in Jazz” during the JVC Jazz Festival. Around this time Chip Jackson replaced Gaskin in histrio; his drummers were Carl Allen and then Steve Johns. He continued to host new series forNational Public Radio, including “Billy Taylor’s Jazz from the Kennedy Center” (from October 1994);an appearance at Jazz Plaza in Havana, Cuba, in December 1997 was among his ongoing festivaltours. In the 1990s Taylor also devoted considerable attention to ambitious compositions; his worksinclude 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 theLibrary 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: “Critic’s 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 York’s Fabled 52nd Street (New York, 1971/R1977 as 52ndStreet: 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 America’s 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 Player’s Advocate,” DB, lviii/2 (1991), 28 [incl. discography]

K. Franckling: “Billy Taylor’s 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

Bill Bennett/Barry Kernfeld


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Billy Taylor, (II) in Oxford Music Online

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