http://www.billytaylorjazz.net presents Billy Taylor and Les McCann performing Billy's composition "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free"
Showing posts with label Dr Billy Taylor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr Billy Taylor. Show all posts
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Onaje Allan Gumbs Reflects on Dr. Billy Taylor
special to NewBlackMan
Dr. Billy Taylor: You Now Know How It Feels to be Free
by Onaje Allan Gumbs
Dr. Billy Taylor was a mentor and a friend. After listening to him on WLIB radio in New York for years, I met him in person just after I got out of high school in 1967. Although I was shy at the time, I mustered up enough courage to approach him...from then, he musically took me in.
While I was still going to college, on break, I would visit him often on the set of The David Frost Show for which he served as Musical Director. Almost jokingly I told him that I'd love to write something for the band. He told me to come back in a couple of months. I came back and to my surprise, he asked me how soon could I do the arrangement. I wrote an original song called "The Third Wave." Once I delivered the chart, I had to go back up to SUNY-Fredonia. I would watch The David Frost Show religiously but never heard my tune.
When I got back to NY and visited the set, Billy told me that there was a problem with the chart. Wel,l once the problem was fixed, Billy had the band play my song into every commercial break. It was an amazing experience to witness since I had no idea that the band was going to do that.
Billy Taylor was the one that encouraged me to join ASCAP which I still belong to today. I remember him telling me,"You can join BMI or ASCAP, but if you want a career as a composer, you'll join ASCAP."
Jaijai Jackson of The Jazz Network Worldwide, a few days ago, put together a profile feature on me at her site. To my surprise, she found, among other photographs, a photo of Billy and myself. I cried when I saw it, thinking back on all he had done for me. It wasn't 48 hours later when I found out Billy had made his transition.
Dr. Billy Taylor was a champion for the importance of the Legacy of Jazz, being the founder of Jazzmobile in New York in the 60's. He was a champion for young people (I remember at a conference years ago, Billy showed me a rap that he had written for a youth symposium he was going to conduct). Through his music, he was also a social activist. His enduring composition,"I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free," became one of the anthems of the Civil Rights Movement.
Billy Taylor was someone you could always walk up to and say hello or engage in a conversation. Always with that youthful voice and big smile, you knew when you were with Dr. Billy Taylor, everything was alright.
Abientot Billy. You now know how it feels to be free.
***
Pianist/keyboardist/producer/arranger/songwriter Onaje Allan Gumbs (pronounced Oh-Nah-Jay) is one of the music industry's most respected and talented music collaborators. Gumbs has worked almost three decades with top talent in the musical fields of jazz, R&B/soul, and pop to hone his considerable skills. A partial list includes Woody Shaw, Nat Adderly, Norman Connors, Angela Bofill, Jean Carn, Cassandra Wilson, Marlena Shaw, Sadao Watanabe, Phyllis Hyman ("The Answer Is You" from his 1979 Somewhere in My Lifetime album), Stanley Jordan, Denise Williams, Vanessa Rubin, Jeffrey Osborne, Eddie Murphy, Rebbie Jackson, and Gerald Albright (Live at Birdland West). His most recent project is Just Like Yesterday.
Dr. Billy Taylor: You Now Know How It Feels to be Free
by Onaje Allan Gumbs
Dr. Billy Taylor was a mentor and a friend. After listening to him on WLIB radio in New York for years, I met him in person just after I got out of high school in 1967. Although I was shy at the time, I mustered up enough courage to approach him...from then, he musically took me in.
While I was still going to college, on break, I would visit him often on the set of The David Frost Show for which he served as Musical Director. Almost jokingly I told him that I'd love to write something for the band. He told me to come back in a couple of months. I came back and to my surprise, he asked me how soon could I do the arrangement. I wrote an original song called "The Third Wave." Once I delivered the chart, I had to go back up to SUNY-Fredonia. I would watch The David Frost Show religiously but never heard my tune.
When I got back to NY and visited the set, Billy told me that there was a problem with the chart. Wel,l once the problem was fixed, Billy had the band play my song into every commercial break. It was an amazing experience to witness since I had no idea that the band was going to do that.
Billy Taylor was the one that encouraged me to join ASCAP which I still belong to today. I remember him telling me,"You can join BMI or ASCAP, but if you want a career as a composer, you'll join ASCAP."
Jaijai Jackson of The Jazz Network Worldwide, a few days ago, put together a profile feature on me at her site. To my surprise, she found, among other photographs, a photo of Billy and myself. I cried when I saw it, thinking back on all he had done for me. It wasn't 48 hours later when I found out Billy had made his transition.
Dr. Billy Taylor was a champion for the importance of the Legacy of Jazz, being the founder of Jazzmobile in New York in the 60's. He was a champion for young people (I remember at a conference years ago, Billy showed me a rap that he had written for a youth symposium he was going to conduct). Through his music, he was also a social activist. His enduring composition,"I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free," became one of the anthems of the Civil Rights Movement.
Billy Taylor was someone you could always walk up to and say hello or engage in a conversation. Always with that youthful voice and big smile, you knew when you were with Dr. Billy Taylor, everything was alright.
Abientot Billy. You now know how it feels to be free.
***
Pianist/keyboardist/producer/arranger/songwriter Onaje Allan Gumbs (pronounced Oh-Nah-Jay) is one of the music industry's most respected and talented music collaborators. Gumbs has worked almost three decades with top talent in the musical fields of jazz, R&B/soul, and pop to hone his considerable skills. A partial list includes Woody Shaw, Nat Adderly, Norman Connors, Angela Bofill, Jean Carn, Cassandra Wilson, Marlena Shaw, Sadao Watanabe, Phyllis Hyman ("The Answer Is You" from his 1979 Somewhere in My Lifetime album), Stanley Jordan, Denise Williams, Vanessa Rubin, Jeffrey Osborne, Eddie Murphy, Rebbie Jackson, and Gerald Albright (Live at Birdland West). His most recent project is Just Like Yesterday.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Late, Great Dr. Billy Taylor
Pianist Billy Taylor, Jazz Ambassador And NPR Host, Dies
by NPR Staff and Patrick Jarenwattananon
Billy Taylor, a pianist who became one of the country's foremost ambassadors for jazz music — including many years as an NPR host — died Tuesday night. The cause was a heart attack, according to his daughter, Kim Taylor Thompson. He was 89.
Born in 1921, Taylor had been a professional musician for more than six decades. After graduating from Virginia State College, he moved to New York in 1944; there, his first big gig was in the band of saxophonist Ben Webster. He would end up playing with essentially all the greats of that era, and many of them since. As a recording artist, he's best known as the leader of a trio, a format he maintained since the 1950s, and also as the composer of the song "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free."
After he had established himself as a premier musician, Taylor began broadcasting jazz. In 1958, he was musical director for The Subject Is Jazz, a National Educational Television program that was the first about jazz. He would later profile many musicians and advocates for CBS' Sunday Morning program; he also directed the band on The David Frost Show and produced projects for PBS.
Additionally, Taylor was program director of the Harlem-based radio station WLIB, and was a host on the New York pop station WNEW. Those positions led to a long relationship with NPR, where he interviewed and featured top performers on numerous programs, including a 13-week series called Taylor Made Piano and the long-running series Jazz Alive! and Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center. NPR Music's JazzSet regularly features performances from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where Taylor was long the artistic director for jazz.
Dr. Billy Taylor — his common appellation, as he held a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and many honorary degrees — is also remembered as an educator who traveled widely for clinics and lectures. Since 1964, his JazzMobile organization has presented free concerts and workshops in New York City (and primarily its heavily African-American neighborhoods). Those who knew him universally speak of his personal warmth, and of his missionary-like zeal for introducing jazz music to people.
Listen @ All Things Considered
also
Honoring Billy Taylor (2008)
WUNC-FM
The State of Things w/ Frank Stasio
When Tar Heel native Billy Taylor arrived in New York City, it took him just one week to land a gig playing piano alongside a jazz master, saxophonist Ben Webster. Taylor's auspicious beginnings in the early 1940s turned into a six-decade long career accompanying great musicians like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. But beyond the masterful performances and hundreds of original jazz compositions, Taylor also made a name for himself by teaching jazz to the masses. Tonight, Billy Taylor will be honored at North Carolina Central University. Taylor and Dr. Larry Ridley, Executive Director of African American Jazz Caucus, join host Frank Stasio to talk about Taylor's life in music and North Carolina's place in jazz history.
Listen HERE
by NPR Staff and Patrick Jarenwattananon
Billy Taylor, a pianist who became one of the country's foremost ambassadors for jazz music — including many years as an NPR host — died Tuesday night. The cause was a heart attack, according to his daughter, Kim Taylor Thompson. He was 89.
Born in 1921, Taylor had been a professional musician for more than six decades. After graduating from Virginia State College, he moved to New York in 1944; there, his first big gig was in the band of saxophonist Ben Webster. He would end up playing with essentially all the greats of that era, and many of them since. As a recording artist, he's best known as the leader of a trio, a format he maintained since the 1950s, and also as the composer of the song "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free."
After he had established himself as a premier musician, Taylor began broadcasting jazz. In 1958, he was musical director for The Subject Is Jazz, a National Educational Television program that was the first about jazz. He would later profile many musicians and advocates for CBS' Sunday Morning program; he also directed the band on The David Frost Show and produced projects for PBS.
Additionally, Taylor was program director of the Harlem-based radio station WLIB, and was a host on the New York pop station WNEW. Those positions led to a long relationship with NPR, where he interviewed and featured top performers on numerous programs, including a 13-week series called Taylor Made Piano and the long-running series Jazz Alive! and Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center. NPR Music's JazzSet regularly features performances from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where Taylor was long the artistic director for jazz.
Dr. Billy Taylor — his common appellation, as he held a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and many honorary degrees — is also remembered as an educator who traveled widely for clinics and lectures. Since 1964, his JazzMobile organization has presented free concerts and workshops in New York City (and primarily its heavily African-American neighborhoods). Those who knew him universally speak of his personal warmth, and of his missionary-like zeal for introducing jazz music to people.
Listen @ All Things Considered
also
Honoring Billy Taylor (2008)
WUNC-FM
The State of Things w/ Frank Stasio
When Tar Heel native Billy Taylor arrived in New York City, it took him just one week to land a gig playing piano alongside a jazz master, saxophonist Ben Webster. Taylor's auspicious beginnings in the early 1940s turned into a six-decade long career accompanying great musicians like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. But beyond the masterful performances and hundreds of original jazz compositions, Taylor also made a name for himself by teaching jazz to the masses. Tonight, Billy Taylor will be honored at North Carolina Central University. Taylor and Dr. Larry Ridley, Executive Director of African American Jazz Caucus, join host Frank Stasio to talk about Taylor's life in music and North Carolina's place in jazz history.
Listen HERE
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