Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor ( born William Taylor Jr., born July 24, 1921 in Greenville, North Carolina, † December 28, 2010 in New York City ) was an influential American jazz pianist and TV and radio presenter of jazz music, as well as university teacher and composer.
Life and work
Billy Taylor's father was a dentist, his mother a teacher. He grew up in Raleigh, Virginia and Washington, DC on and made his B. S. in music in 1942 at Virginia State College in 1943 came to New York and played piano professionally from 1944, first in a quartet of Ben Webster in New York, then with Stuff Smith (Pickup 1944), Eddie South, Cozy Cole, Machito and Slam Stewart. Later he was a " house pianist " at Birdland, where he played among others with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Caused a sensation in his Town Hall appearance in 1945 in the quartet of Bill Coleman, who was released by Commodore. With Don Redman in 1946 he went on a European tour; End of the 1940s he led his own trio. With Charles Mingus, he took in the summer of 1953 pieces in a duo (bass - ically Speaking, republished in Charles Mingus: The Complete Debut Recordings); then he had his own groups. In 1965 he founded the Jazz Mobile; since to be held under that name in Harlem ( and all of New York) summer concerts and workshops ( "Music- Clinics" ).
In 1956 he participated in Quincy Jones ' debut album, This Is How I Feel About Jazz. In 1958 he was musical director of the first TV series about Jazz The Subject is Jazz at NBC. As the first African American in 1969, he led a band in the TV show by David Frost. In the 1970s, he had the radio series Jazz alive, in 1981 he headed the jazz corner on the hit show CBS Sunday Morning. He was an advisor for jazz at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
As a pianist, he played both in bop and swing in the idiom. One of his most famous compositions is " I Wish I Knew ( How It Would Feel to Be Free) " from 1954, which won in the 1950s and 1960s popularity in the Civil Rights Movement and among other things, was interpreted by Nina Simone (on Silk and Soul 1967). In 1973 he wrote the " Suite for Jazz Piano and Orchestra".
In 1975 he received his doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts. After that, he was Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He died on 28 December 2010 at the age of 89 years at a hospital in New York of a heart attack.
Awards
Taylor has been awarded numerous (23 ) honorary doctorates. He received an Emmy and a Grammy; In 1988, the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship.
Discography (selection)
- Cross-Section ( OJC, 1953-54 )
- A Touch of Taylor ( Prestige, 1955)
- Billy Taylor With Four Flutes ( OJC, 1959)
- You Tempt Me ( Taylor -Made, 1985)
- White Nights And Jazz In Leningrad (Taylor -Made, 1988)
- Solo ( Taylor -Made, 1988)
- Billy Taylor And The Jazz Mobile All Stars (Taylor -Made, 1989)
- Dr. T ( GRP, 1992) with Gerry Mulligan