The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor

Description

Certificate of Merit in Historical Research in Recorded Jazz, 2014 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

Read an excerpt from the book Billy Taylor Jazz Storyteller:

The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor: America's Classical Musician is the autobiography of the legendary jazz ambassador whose work spans more than six decades, from the heyday of 52nd Street in 1940s New York City to CBS Sunday Morning. Beginning with his childhood in segregation-era Washington D.C., Billy Taylor recounts how he came of age as a jazz musician in smoke-filled clubs pulsating with the rhythms of bebop, and later climbed to world acclaim as an internationally recognized music educator and popular media figure. Through his life's work, Taylor fought not only for the recognition of jazz music as "America's classical music" but also for the recognition of black musicians as key contributors to the American music repertoire. Peppered with anecdotes detailing encounters with other jazz legends such as Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Ben Webster, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and many others, this autobiography is not only the life story of a jazz musician and spokesman, but is also the history of a nation grappling with racism and modernity.

Introduction
Chronology of the Life of William Edward Taylor Jr.

1. Beginnings: 1921–1938
2. College Years: 1938–1942
3. Making Waves: 1943–1946
4. The Subject Is Jazz: 1946–1958
5. From "Tobacco Tags" to the Urban Airwaves: 1959–1968
6. How It Feels to Be Free: 1969–1990
7. Reflections

Discography
Selected Publications Authored by Dr. Billy Taylor
Index

Sujets

• Musique
• Histoire de la musique
• Piano
• Jazz
• Music
• Train de luxe
• Autobiography
• Billy Taylor
• Keyboard
• 20th century
• Keyboard instrument
• Pedagogy
• Multiple signal classification
• Biography
• Popular music
• Musical instrument
• Musical Instruments

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 18 avril 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 4
• EAN13: 9780253009173
• Langue: English

Extrait

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington Indianapolis

This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
2013 by Teresa Reed
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the
United States of America
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Taylor, Billy, 1921-2010, author.
The jazz life of Dr. Billy Taylor /
Dr. Billy Taylor with Teresa L. Reed. pages cm
Includes bibliographical references,
index, and discography.
ISBN 978-0-253-00909-8 (cloth : alkaline paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00917-3 (e-book) 1. Taylor, Billy, 1921-2010. 2. Jazz musicians-United States-Biography. I. Reed, Teresa L., [date-] author. II. Title.
ML417.T24A3 2013
781.65092-dc23
[B]
2012047536
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
TO THOSE WHO TEACH MUSIC

Jazz is America s classical music .
Contents
Introduction
Chronology of the Life of William Edward Taylor Jr .

1 Beginnings: 1921-1938
2 College Years: 1938-1942
3 Making Waves: 1943-1946
Figures appear on pages 90-108 .
4 The Subject Is Jazz: 1946-1958
5 From Tobacco Tags to the Urban Airwaves: 1959-1968
6 How It Feels to Be Free: 1969-1990
7 Reflections

Discography
Selected Publications Authored by Dr. Billy Taylor
Index
Introduction
On a frigid December evening, I left my room at Le Parker Meridian and decided to walk the five blocks to the place where Dr. Billy Taylor left his heart. That place, that era, and that magic were so deeply ingrained in his being that his stories about 52nd Street came alive in my own mind, transporting me to the reality of something that I could feel and hear even though its sights and sounds had already vanished well before I was born. I weaved my way through Manhattan s bustling throngs, its street vendors, showgoers, tourists, subway catchers, and fashionable canines, each exhaling hurried breaths of cold, steamy air from faces set like flint in their respective forward-moving directions. Swimming against this current of future-facing pedestrians, I was looking to arrive at a place in the past. Dr. Taylor s 52nd Street was nearing the golden anniversary of its swan song. But I had the faith of an archeologist. The history made on 52nd Street was too significant, too world-changing to have vanished altogether. Some evidence of its glory days must still survive.
Swing Street. A ten-minute walk brought me to the corner of 52nd and 6th Streets, where, in a nearly frostbitten state, I turned in the direction where the Onyx Club, the Famous Door, the Hickory House, and the Three Deuces had been in the 1930s and 1940s. Of course, there were different buildings in the places where these clubs once stood, but I imagined myself tracing the footsteps of a twenty-two-year-old Bill Taylor, perhaps even walking on the same pavement that brought him, more than six decades earlier, to this very spot as he headed to the Three Deuces for his audition on an equally frigid night.
A single edifice on 52nd Street survives from that era: Club 21. It was always known as a speakeasy-turned-swanky-restaurant more than as a jazz club. Owned during the 1940s by Sherman Billingsley, 21 was unique in that it stood out as one of the very few establishments on that block that remained closed to African Americans even though most of the surrounding jazz clubs were already integrated and regularly hosting both racially mixed bands and clientele. But at least it was still standing and had not gone the sad way of its peer institutions. Perhaps it contained the ghosts of patrons who stopped here for steak and lobster before heading to the Onyx Club for drinks and a late-night set of Dizzy Gillespie. If only its walls could talk.
When I began working with Dr. Taylor in 2006, I quickly learned that 52nd Street was the physical address, the geographical landmark, the spiritual mecca in his life that made all the difference. Whether we were covering his boyhood on Flagler Place, or his college days at Virginia State, or his work on the David Frost Show , our conversations always seemed to veer around to that most sacred of memories, a beautiful time in jazz history when musicians enjoyed a unique sort of kinship. In Dr. Taylor s day, the flashing lights and foot-tapping excitement of these clubs on 52nd Street beckoned loudly to lovers of great jazz as well as to up-and-coming musicians. These clubs offered a showcase of legendary jazz performances, all contained within the short distance of a few city blocks. This was also a musical boot camp, a place where master musicians presided over the jam sessions that trained and toughened the newcomers, a place where battered and bruised egos could go to the club next door and hear the likes of Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, and Erroll Garner long enough to lick their wounds and gain enough inspiration and confidence to go back to the next jam session and try it again.
Approaching Club 21, I decided to ask the doorman if he knew anything about 52nd Street s former glory days as a jazz hub. There were few patrons coming in for dinner that night, so he kindly took the time to converse with me about the restaurant s intriguing past as a speakeasy back in the era of Prohibition. He told me all about Club 21 s secret cellars and hidden doorways and about the legendary gangsters who dined there; but he had no information at all to offer about the jazz of that era. After approaching several others who appeared to be employed at the various establishments on the block, it became clear to me that, save for the single sign that bore its nickname-Swing Street-few of today s pedestrians who hurried along this corridor had any idea that they were treading on sacred jazz ground.
My hope sank. I was saddened by this collective loss of cultural memory, saddened by this great city s failure to properly preserve the status and distinction of this place that changed America forever. And for the first time, I really understood with my heart more than with my head the near desperation with which Dr. Taylor told and retold his story of coming of age at the time and on the street where the path led from swing to bebop, the street where young Bill Taylor was transformed-musically, spiritually, and creatively-into the Billy Taylor that millions have come to know and love.
Dr. Taylor was in his mid-eighties when we began our collaboration. Although he had supposedly retired from public life some time earlier, the fact is that he remained incredibly busy, incredibly engaged, still traveling, still performing, and still planning up until the very last ounce of his health gave way. Most of our conversations were by phone, and during our talks, each of which lasted for between one and two hours, it was typical for him to pause several times in order to answer a seemingly endless stream of calls that were coming in on a separate line. Caught between the tension of the work that he loved and the story that needed to soon find its place on paper, the ostensibly retired Dr. Taylor was a master at avoiding cadences. He was arranging meetings, answering requests for interviews, setting up rehearsals and performances, confirming campus visits, and accepting awards the entire time that he was working on his memoir, determined to use every moment to the fullest, refusing to speculate on which of those moments might be among the last.
No single volume-not even one authored by Dr. Taylor himself- can contain a completely detailed accounting of all of his performances, awards, or achievements. The richness and breadth of Dr. Taylor s contribution to jazz is simply too daunting to capture in one monograph. Even if this were possible, it would be out of character for Dr. Taylor to go on and on about his own accolades. This simply was not his way of doing things. Instead, his manner was to pay homage to those who shaped and influenced him, to shine the spotlight on history s forgotten jazz heroes, and to educate, encourage, and advise the next generation.
I sought to guide Dr. Taylor through a series of conversations about his life that could then be converted into a readable narrative, one that retained the integrity of his life story and the essence of his voice. Admittedly, I was star-struck during those first phone calls, fully aware that I was speaking to a major figure, terrified of saying the wrong thing, of asking the wrong question, of wasting his time. I had a rigid, businesslike focus on the task at hand. By contrast, Dr. Taylor was relaxed and good-natured, decidedly unfazed by his own greatness, and never in too much of a hurry to ask me about my day, my work, my students, and the mundane happenings of my life. Over time, he put me at such ease that my businesslike shell dissolved in the warmth of his kindness, and what began as a collaboration between a jazz legend and an anonymous ghostwriter evolved into the affection that one has for her cherished surrogate grandfather. On many occasions, the objectives I planned for our working sessions were compromised when Dr. Taylor wanted to just talk-not about this autobiography-but about the weather in New York, or the event he d been to the night before, or the drink he tried at Starbucks, or a remodeling project under way at his house