Billy Taylor (jazz bassist)

William " Billy" Taylor ( born April 3, 1906 in Washington, DC, † September 2, 1986 in Fairfax, Virginia) was an American jazz bassist and tuba with the swing.

Life and work

Billy Taylor played with thirteen years Tuba and came in 1924 to New York, where he was employed for one year by Elmer Snowden. He then worked in 1926 at Willie Gant and Arthur Gibbs, from 1927 to 1929 with Charlie Johnson, from 1929 to 1931 in McKinney 's Cotton Pickers and again in 1932/33, with Charlie Johnson. In this period, he gave up the tuba in favor of the bass. In 1934 he played with Fats Waller, Fletcher Henderson and then in 1935 to 1940 in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with whom he briefly played before 1928. Admission Jimmy Blanton led to the Taylor Ellington band left soon. During the time when he took the Ellington on Ellington band with musicians like Cootie Williams and Johnny Hodges in the small group recordings. In 1940 he worked with Coleman Hawkins with Red Allen (1940 /1) and Joe Sullivan (1942 ), Cootie Williams ( 1944), Barney Bigard ( 1944/5 ), Benny Morton (1945 ) and Cozy Cole ( 1945). After that, he worked mainly as a freelance musician in New York and in 1949 in Washington DC., 1944, he took at Keynote Records with Johnny Guarnieri, Harry Carney, inter alia, under his own name.

Taylor was one of the most prominent bassists in the swing era. He participated in countless recordings by which particularly Fats Waller's Dream Man (1934 ), Duke Ellington diminuendo and crescendo in Blue, Harmony in Harlem (1937 ), Subtle Lament and Portrait of the Lion ( 1939) are noteworthy. Taylor also took on plates under his own name.

The bass player is not to be confused with the 1921 -born jazz pianist Billy Taylor.