Jazz critic Whitnay Balliett once wrote: "Taylor, perhaps more than any, runs almost directly counterstream to contemporary jazz pianistry." He wrote this couple of years ago but it still holde good today and casts a certain light on Taylor's personality. There is certainly no defi-ciency of good jazz piano players and it would be hard to decide if one had to confine oneself to a mare handful. The choice would have to begin with the Fats Waller school and would arrive via Earl Hines and Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum and their disciples at modern jazz piano playing. This has spread in many ways. There are big band plano players as different as Basie and Ellington, there is the Bud Powell school and esoteric players like Erroll Garner, not to forget some eccentric directions in the manner of Thelonious Monk, soul piano as played by Bobby Timmons and Ray Bryant. Not to forget Horace Sliver and Herbie Hancock. And Oscar Peterson on his solitary summit. And Cacil Taylor. And, and, and.......
What is Billy Taylor's place? I believe it is a very special and unique one. You can only gauge him by taking other dimensions as well into account, dimensions which determine as a matter of fact every artist but which are found in different measurements. To put it simple: heart, brain and hand make the artist, be he a musician or painter, a composer or poet.
An artist whose work is determined by brain and intellect only hads very little indeed to offer in spite of all his brilliancy. If you meet the man Billy Taylor you are at once captured by his warm, calm and well-balanced way. There is no frustration or hate although he is susceptible to the wrongs that have been done to his race. His composition "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free". Almost made the hit parade in 1968. In the same personal and obliging way Billy Taylor stands up and walks over to the mike to announce what he is going to play. In his playing a superficial listener might detect the same qualities: his playing is easy on the ear. if Billy Taylor did not have so much heart you could be inclined to call him an intellectual. He is a mellifluous talker, he has scted on the stage and on television, lectured on music at schools and colleges and was on many panel discus-sions. I watched him in this capacity in 1957 in Newport when the subject was "drug addiction among Jazz musicians". Taylor was the only musician, sitting next to a physician, a lawyer a preacher and a manager. Billy Taylor knows what he is talking about. And he has experience. In 1959 he got his own radio show on WLIB from
where he switched in 1962 to WNEW, both in New York. Today he is back with WLIB and program director. Taylor is one of the originators of the Jazzmobile in Harlem which originated in the summer of 1965. Since 1966 he had his own TV show and he acted in "Seven Lively Arts". He has written several instruction books and written a number of keenly perceptive articles for "Down Beat" and the "Saturday Review". All in ali, Billy Taylor is a pride of the profession.
Maybe it is his modesty which prevents him from being more in the limelight and reap the recogni tion he deserves. Billy Taylor strives for perfec tion. When he was a musician of reputation he continued to study with Richard McClanahan, a pupil of Tobias Mathay and the teacher of Dame Myra Hess, to cultivate his touch at the keyboard. He wants to know all about music, from Bach to Bartok. Taylor went the hard way. He played with Gillespie and Parker, with Don Redman and Gerry Mulligan, with Lee Konitz and Georgie Auld. Many years he was sort of house pianist at "Birdland". With his own trio he played for many years at the "Hickory House on 52nd Street. The drummer. who gained world-wide recognition with him and whom he later lost to Oscar Peterson was Ed Thigpen.
Billy Taylor is a brilliant pianist. His left hand is just as dexterous as his right a real boon it you think of so many modern pianists who don't even know they have a left hand. Listen to "There'll Never Be Another You", listen to the way he celebrates the first chorus all by himself without bass and drums and how he proceeds by improvising with both hands simultaneously in baroque way, later infusing a dash of gospel and soul feeling and how it swings! The "Paraphrase" on the other side is just as brilliant. Or how he builds up chorus after chorus, But then Billy Taylor is a master of "programming". It is this art where the amateur can easily be distinguished from the perfect artist. Take the ballad "Theo-dora", and the playing of a ballad is the touch-stone for every jazz musician. But the blues is not neglected either. "La petite Mambo has an enlarged form of twenty-four bars and Latin-American tinge, whereas "Bye Y'all" is genuine unadulterated blues.
It is an old truth that records pave the way for artists to go abroad on tour, especially jazz musicians. I wish this record becomes best-seller so that Billy Taylor leaves New York and comes to Europe. But before this happens we have to look for consolation in records such as this one!
-Dietrich Schulz-Köhn
diegodobini2
Billy Taylor Trio – Sleeping Bee (1969)
https://youtu.be/CbG9hjKApPA
alt: https://youtu.be/J2r-Y1BAkdw
Original Liner Notes:
Jazz critic Whitnay Balliett once wrote: "Taylor, perhaps more than any, runs almost directly counterstream to contemporary jazz pianistry." He wrote this couple of years ago but it still holde good today and casts a certain light on Taylor's personality. There is certainly no defi-ciency of good jazz piano players and it would be hard to decide if one had to confine oneself to a mare handful. The choice would have to begin with the Fats Waller school and would arrive via Earl Hines and Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum and their disciples at modern jazz piano playing. This has spread in many ways. There are big band plano players as different as Basie and Ellington, there is the Bud Powell school and esoteric players like Erroll Garner, not to forget some eccentric directions in the manner of Thelonious Monk, soul piano as played by Bobby Timmons and Ray Bryant. Not to forget Horace Sliver and Herbie Hancock. And Oscar Peterson on his solitary summit. And Cacil Taylor. And, and, and.......
What is Billy Taylor's place? I believe it is a very special and unique one. You can only gauge him by taking other dimensions as well into account, dimensions which determine as a matter of fact every artist but which are found in different measurements. To put it simple: heart, brain and hand make the artist, be he a musician or painter, a composer or poet.
An artist whose work is determined by brain and intellect only hads very little indeed to offer in spite of all his brilliancy. If you meet the man Billy Taylor you are at once captured by his warm, calm and well-balanced way. There is no frustration or hate although he is susceptible to the wrongs that have been done to his race. His composition "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free". Almost made the hit parade in 1968. In the same personal and obliging way Billy Taylor stands up and walks over to the mike to announce what he is going to play. In his playing a superficial listener might detect the same qualities: his playing is easy on the ear. if Billy Taylor did not have so much heart you could be inclined to call him an intellectual. He is a mellifluous talker, he has scted on the stage and on television, lectured on music at schools and colleges and was on many panel discus-sions. I watched him in this capacity in 1957 in Newport when the subject was "drug addiction among Jazz musicians". Taylor was the only musician, sitting next to a physician, a lawyer a preacher and a manager. Billy Taylor knows what he is talking about. And he has experience. In 1959 he got his own radio show on WLIB from
where he switched in 1962 to WNEW, both in New York. Today he is back with WLIB and program director. Taylor is one of the originators of the Jazzmobile in Harlem which originated in the summer of 1965. Since 1966 he had his own TV show and he acted in "Seven Lively Arts". He has written several instruction books and written a number of keenly perceptive articles for "Down Beat" and the "Saturday Review". All in ali, Billy Taylor is a pride of the profession.
Maybe it is his modesty which prevents him from being more in the limelight and reap the recogni tion he deserves. Billy Taylor strives for perfec tion. When he was a musician of reputation he continued to study with Richard McClanahan, a pupil of Tobias Mathay and the teacher of Dame Myra Hess, to cultivate his touch at the keyboard. He wants to know all about music, from Bach to Bartok. Taylor went the hard way. He played with Gillespie and Parker, with Don Redman and Gerry Mulligan, with Lee Konitz and Georgie Auld. Many years he was sort of house pianist at "Birdland". With his own trio he played for many years at the "Hickory House on 52nd Street. The drummer. who gained world-wide recognition with him and whom he later lost to Oscar Peterson was Ed Thigpen.
Billy Taylor is a brilliant pianist. His left hand is just as dexterous as his right a real boon it you think of so many modern pianists who don't even know they have a left hand. Listen to "There'll Never Be Another You", listen to the way he celebrates the first chorus all by himself without bass and drums and how he proceeds by improvising with both hands simultaneously in baroque way, later infusing a dash of gospel and soul feeling and how it swings! The "Paraphrase" on the other side is just as brilliant. Or how he builds up chorus after chorus, But then Billy Taylor is a master of "programming". It is this art where the amateur can easily be distinguished from the perfect artist. Take the ballad "Theo-dora", and the playing of a ballad is the touch-stone for every jazz musician. But the blues is not neglected either. "La petite Mambo has an enlarged form of twenty-four bars and Latin-American tinge, whereas "Bye Y'all" is genuine unadulterated blues.
It is an old truth that records pave the way for artists to go abroad on tour, especially jazz musicians. I wish this record becomes best-seller so that Billy Taylor leaves New York and comes to Europe. But before this happens we have to look for consolation in records such as this one!
-Dietrich Schulz-Köhn
1 month ago | [YT] | 3