Friday, February 25, 2011

Pianist Billy Taylor in Louisville

Pianist Billy Taylor educates a full house of jazz enthusiasts

In an interview before his concert last night at Bellarmine College’s new Wyatt Theater Recital Hall, jazz pianist Billy Taylor, said that he considered himself a musical missionary.

Since the 1950s, Taylor who holds a combined masters and doctorate degree in music education from the University of Massachusetts, has been one of the most articulate spokesman for jazz in the United States.

Through his lectures, books and appearances on radio and television -
He was host of National Public Radio’s “Jazz Alive” series for six years and won an Emmy for a segment on CBS television’s “Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt” - Taylor spends most of his time winning new converts for jazz.

But the full house at the Wyatt last night got to see another side of Taylor’s manifold personality, that of the musician. At 63, Taylor is a masterful jazz pianist who cut his teeth playing with the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Ben Webster.

He began the concert with a Latin flavored song entitled “You Tempt Me,” lightly tickling the piano keyboard for the first few bars of the tune. Taylor set up the rhythm before being joined by bassist Victor Gaskin and drummer Curtis Boyd, who added the percussive effects with his high hat cymbal.

Like fellow pianist Ahmad Jamal, Taylor has a penchant for Latin rhythms and it shows through much of his playing.

Taylor shares another thing with Jamal; he likes to refer to jazz as America’s classical music. He said during the interview, “Jazz is America’s classical music because for over 100 years it has taken all the elements of our society and put them in a musical perspective which represents more accurately than any other musical form who we are and what we are about.”





He told the audience pretty much the same thing during last night’s concert. Then he proved his point by playing “Make a Joyful Noise,” his own six-part, sacred composition, which contains nearly every mood that can be conveyed by music.

During “Rejoice,” the third movement of this work, drummer Boyd put down his sticks and began to play his drum set with his bare hands, stopping at times to rest an elbow on his snare drum to produce a desired effect. The audience loved it and gave him loud applause.

On “Prayer,” the fourth movement, Taylor reached inside his piano and strummed the strings before setting up the haunting theme. The final movement “Walking in the Light,” featured the trio swinging together furiously.

At one point during the concert Taylor took time out to commend local jazz educator and musician Jamey Aebersold, who was in the audience.

“Jamey has had a tremendous effect on musicians all over the world with his jazz clinics, books, and play along records. We should honor a person when they are alive, not wait until they are dead,” he said. The audience then gave Aebersold a round of applause.

Taylor ended the concert by playing another original composition of his, “I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free.”

He said the song had been named one of the most important songs of 1960s by the New York Times and he was playing it to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s freedom march to Selma, Ala.

Danny O’Bryan
The Louisville Times
March 4, 1985

From the up-coming book “Derby City Jazz.”

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