Billy taylor what is jazz

Taylor founded and served as director for a new jazz radio program called Jazz Alive , which he also hosted. The NPR program featured live jazz performances from new and established artists all over the country. He also developed TaylorMade Piano , a week series tracing the history of jazz.

Given his vast experience in the broadcast field, it came as no surprise that CBS offered him a job as a correspondent for their popular show, CBS Sunday Morning , at that time hosted by Charles Kuralt.

Taylor had appeared as a guest on the show and the producers were so taken with his presence that they asked him to join the show permanently. During his long tenure with that program, Taylor profiled well over one hundred jazz artists, both noted and obscure, giving them exposure never before possible for a journeyman jazz musician. In , Taylor won an Emmy for his work on that acclaimed program, specifically for a segment with Quincy Jones. Throughout his career in the media, Taylor never stopped performing and recording.

In addition, Taylor was a frequent speaker and guest of honor at the JazzTimes Convention, the industry conferences sponsored by this publication. During his lifetime, Taylor received many honors, including about two dozen honorary doctoral degrees.

He also received two Peabody Awards for broadcasting as well as a Grammy. He received the Grammy Trustees Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement in a non-performing capacity, in February On March 3, , Dr. Taylor had a long and fruitful relationship with the Kennedy Center in Washington, D. The Kennedy Center celebrated Dr. He was a great statesman and ambassador for jazz throughout the world.

We are grateful for Dr. Taylor presented to the Library of Congress his jazz collection and memorabilia assembled over more than 65 years, the largest and most inclusive jazz archive ever acquired by the Library. Adler profiled the pianist in his home environs there. During the interview ostensibly about his home life, Taylor decried the relative decline in sophisticated music in American culture, but then quickly made sure to recommend an up-and-coming young musician, Eldar Djangirov. Regardless of the setting or context, Taylor always had a knack for elevating the conversation about music and for championing other players, often those of much lesser renown.

Taylor was a devoted husband and father, who despite a busy schedule would always do his best to be there for his family. He is survived by his wife Teddy and daughter Kim Taylor-Thompson. His son, Duane, died in Many people in the jazz community considered Taylor part of their family and his death on Tuesday, December 28, was an emotional blow to those whose lives Taylor had touched, directly or indirectly.

In African tradition, a griot is a professional entertainer, a master musician, a historian, a bearer of news, good and bad, a storyteller, an educator, a wise man and sometimes a healer. I am not a healer, but I have lived a long time, traveled a lot and actually lived through and participated in enough history in the other categories.

JazzTimes Newsletter. America's jazz resource, delivered to your inbox. Charles Seeger, father of the folk singer Pete Seeger, once told a revealing jazz story which he heard on a s trip to a conference of musicologists. An eminent delegate confided to Seeger that he didn't hate jazz at all, in fact it was probably important and worthy of study — but he hated the tendency of the music's fans to treat their passion as if it were holy.

Seeger suggested that maybe classical music admirers treat their preference as holy, too. Although Billy Taylor, the jazz pianist, broadcaster and educator, who has died aged 89, campaigned tirelessly for jazz to be accorded the same respect as classical music, the one-time house pianist at New York's Birdland club was never tempted to turn jazz into holy writ.

The warmth, openness and cultural breadth that informed his profound jazz knowledge was to make him widely regarded as the most respected jazz educator in the US. He was also one of the few jazz advocates to secure regular airtime on mainstream radio and television, notably as a cultural correspondent on CBS News's Sunday Morning programme, as musical director of David Frost's show between and , and as host of the National Public Radio show Jazz Alive.

Taylor was an elegant swing pianist in a style raised on the panache of Teddy Wilson and later inflected by bebop, but after the s, his devotion to education increasingly occupied him. He spread the word through constant lecturing, writing and persuasive service on arts and education advisory boards.

But most imaginatively, he brought the jazz legends of his youth to s street corners and ghetto schoolrooms with his Jazzmobile project.

The name of Duke Ellington might not mean much to a young James Brown fan, Taylor told the New York Times in , but "when he's seen him on th Street", it becomes a different matter. Enter the password that accompanies your username. Pianist, composer, and recording artist Billy Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina, on July 24, , to a dentist father and schoolteacher mother.

As a youth, Taylor and his family moved to Washington, D. During his teenaged years, Taylor was heavily influenced by the sounds of the Big Bands that were popular. Young Taylor experimenting with many instruments, including drums, guitar and the saxophone, before he found his niche with the study of classical piano.

Aside from actively pursing his musical education through independent means, Taylor also remained active in academia, graduating from Virginia State College in with his B. Taylor moved to New York City in , where he began his professional music career playing piano with Ben Webster's Quartet on 52nd Street. Taylor eventually became the house pianist at the legendary Birdland jazz club, where played alongside musical greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis. Taylor continued on in the New York circuits, until the s, when he began to lead and record with his own trio.

Taylor entered the realm of television in the s, when he took on the role of musical director for The David Frost Show, which broadcast on the U. Westinghouse Corporation television stations. Later in his television career, Taylor hosted his own jazz piano show on the Bravo network called Jazz Counterpoint.