Jazz Articles about Billy Taylor

"Bebop" from Taylor Made Piano

by AAJ Staff
June 2, 2005

By Billy Taylor Chapter 9: Bebop Originally published in 1982, this book is an invaluable and popular resource for both music students and professional musicians alike. Billy Taylor conveys the history and development of America's classical music, jazz, through a unique perspective--that of practicing musician, jazz pianist and educator. This excerpt is taken from the chapter on Bebop.

Billy Taylor: Taylor Made at the Kennedy Center

by Franz A. Matzner
April 14, 2005

A tribute to the retiring Dr. Billy Taylor, Taylor Made at the Kennedy Center documents the artist's performance career at the Kennedy Center and presents him in the context he loved best--on stage and sharing his love of jazz by not only performing his own music, but also bringing to the audience some of jazz's greatest contemporary voices.

Culled from several years' worth of live recordings at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, the album presents nine tracks, each an original ...

Final Notes: Dr. Billy Taylor Retires from Concert Performance

by Franz A. Matzner
April 12, 2005

Educator, ambassador, author, composer, and master pianist, Dr. Billy Taylor ended his concert career last Thursday night, concluding over sixty years as one of jazz's greatest emissaries with a rousing performance at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater by his trio and guest John Faddis. Billy Taylor's career has spanned the entirety of modern jazz, and his efforts have touched countless listeners and students, and helped to establish the careers of many of today's most notable voices. He ...

Billy Taylor: A Comma - Not a Period

by Erik R. Quick
April 5, 2005

The second and last set of pianist Billy Taylor's final public performances on March 31, 2005, was an emotional experience for many reasons. Although Taylor was born in North Carolina, Washington, DC was his home from the age of five, until he graduated Virginia State University. At the age of thirteen, Taylor played his first professional date at The Republic Gardens, a small club on the historic “U Street corridor of Washington, which contained many since closed venues (The Republic ...

Jazzy Soundtracks 3: Kwamina

by C. Andrew Hovan
November 15, 2004

Billy Taylor Orchestra Jazzy Soundtracks 3: Kwamina Mercury 1962Continuing our look into soundtrack albums of a jazz nature, we depart this month from film scores to take a look at a jazz interpretation of music from a Broadway production. Opening in October of 1961 and running for a mere 32 performances, Kwamina takes place in West Africa in a British colony where a young woman doctor runs into trouble when she falls ...

The Billy Taylor Trio: Warming Up!

by David Rickert
September 22, 2004

Billy Taylor is primarily known for bringing jazz to a wider audience through radio, television, and, in the case of the Jazzmobile, the streets of the city. But along the way he also recorded some fine jazz albums as well.

The two sessions featured on this reissue are trio dates that are a little bit unusual in their conception. The first, 1960's Warming Up!, is a series of recordings done for a radio transcription agency. All are tunes ...

Dr. Billy Taylor

by Rob Mariani
May 27, 2004

He was probably the first person I'd ever heard talk intelligently about jazz. On his New York radio show on WLIB in the late fifties, Billy Taylor spoke with eloquent simplicity about the music he loved. And then he'd play one of his own records and I remember thinking, this is how piano playing should sound--expansive, inclusive, full of endless possibilities. I finally got my father, who was not all that enthused about my interest in jazz at ...