Tales of Taylor

As a DJ on WLIB in New York City during the 1960s, Billy Taylor played music by his friends and musical associates, and shared stories of the jazz life with his thousands of listeners. Photo from "Jazz: The First Century"

Ladies and gents, Billy Taylor: jazz's forgotten jack of all trades. The guy could play like Tatum, composed and arranged over 300 tunes, performed on hundreds of record albums, hosted his own jazz radio programs locally in New York City and nationally over NPR, did television shows for NBC and NET, created Harlem's Jazzmobile, taught college level jazz courses, and could speak with the erudition of PhD candidate. Wiki says over the course of his career he amassed 23 honorary doctoral degrees. I believe it. 

So why is it that today Billy Taylor is largely overlooked when jazz aficionados congregate? Why isn't his music taken more seriously? Even Oscar Peterson, himself a Tatum follower with a tendency to indulge in easy stylistic grandstanding, gets more props than Dr. Billy. It's a mystery.

I first started listening seriously to Dr. Taylor's music back when he went on air with "Jazz Alive!" on NPR back in the mid-'70s. Every week he featured real jazz players (at least, I considered them so) in live performance. I heard Rollins, Max Roach, the Heath Brothers, Dizzy, Mingus and many others on his broadcasts. But I also heard Braxton, Sam Rivers, Chico Freeman, the Art Ensemble and other leaders of the creative music movement. I taped many of the segments and still listen to them today. Billy may not have liked all the music he featured, but he brought it to the airwaves for all of us to share regardless of his feelings. For that alone, I deeply respect him. Nobody else did that.

But then there was his playing. The guy could play, and while he was not a genius like Bud Powell or a visionary like Cecil Taylor, he could surprise and delight with the best of them. 

Case in point, this hoary Roost recording. A compendium of earlier sessions, the music comes from the early '50s and captures Taylor under the joint sway of Tatum and Powell. His performances are brisk and pyrotechnic, and if you've not really heard his early work before, this LP is for you. The sound is iffy in places, due in large part to a previous owner's bad needle, but I think the download is definitely worth the price of admission. Dubbed, as always, from the original wax, fear not!

Taylor Made Piano 

Billy Taylor
Roost LP 2222

Billy Taylor, p; Chuck Wayne*, Mundell Lowe, g; Earl May, b; Frank Colon, cnga; Zoot Sims, maracas; Charlie Smith, Jo Jones*, d. 
New York, NY; November 1, 1951; May 2, 1952; autumn 1952.

1. Just Squeeze Me*
2. Feeling Frisky (Taylor)*
3. Making Whoopee
4. Tiroro (Taylor)
5. Moonlight Saving Time
6. Cu-Blu (Taylor)*

Billy Taylor, p; Charles Mingus, b; Marquis Foster, d.
Storyville Club, Boston, MA; Autumn 1952

7. I'm Beginning to See the Light
8. All the Things You Are
9. Lady Bird

Find it here: https://www.mediafire.com/?5w2hv7x1i1b7oqw

12 by George

That's Shearing you're hearing ... the quintet in Hollywood, 1952, around the time of the recordings below. From left, Al McKibbon, George, Denzil Best, Dick Garcia (a guess) and Joe Roland. Photo from songbook1.wordpress.com

Call this a guilty-pleasure posting. I've always loved George Shearing's music, even though much of it is – in my unbiased opinion – pop schlock. His stuff on Capitol devolved into spurts of tidy piano interspersed between tedious string arrangements and woo-woo vocal choirs. I have about thirty of his recordings on that label and I never listen to those (how I got them is a long story). But I do listen to the sessions Shearing and the quintet did for MGM. They're something else altogether.

Shearing speaks at the dedication of a new 
wing at the Hadley School in 1968. He'd briefly
attended the institution a decade earlier. At
the time, I was living a few blocks away in the
village of Winnetka.

By the time George Shearing got to America from his native England in 1947, he was already considered an accomplished jazz pianist. He'd already recorded for Leonard Feather, and in 1949 his performance of "September in the Rain" on MGM sold nearly a million copies. Whether he got his "locked hands" style of soloing from Lionel Hampton's pianist, Milt Bucker, or whether he thought it up himself is beside the point. Shearing soon became associated with that distinctive sound, and his many, many records for MGM serve up numerous examples of it. They are formulaic, to be sure, with the melody invariably played in unison by piano, guitar and vibes, but the tight ensemble work, light touch and succinct virtuosity convey a kind of jazz urbanity that is unique in the music.

A George Shearing record and cocktails really do seem to go together.

So here's my favorite George Shearing album. It's one of five LPs he issued on MGM, culled mostly from his earlier 78 rpm releases. It's a comfortable mix of romantic pop ballads and bop-oriented originals. The personnel varies a bit, but it's mostly Don Elliott on vibes (also an accomplished mellophone and trumpet player) and Chuck Wayne on guitar. Give a listen, and I think you'll hear why King Pleasure immortalized Shearing in his lyrics to Lester Young's "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid."

As always, these files were dubbed directly from the vinyl with just a little cleaning of the sound. Sorry for the heavy ring wear on the cover, but I was too lazy to Photoshop it out. Note that the order of the tunes is incorrect on the cover but has been fixed below.

Touch of Genius
George Shearing Quintet
MGM E3265
George Shearing, p; Don Elliott, xyl, vbs; Chuck Wayne, g; John Levy, b; Denzil Best, d. New York, NY; February 5, 7, 1951

1. My Silent Love
2. Midnight Mood (Shearing)
3. If You Were the Only Girl in the World
4. Minoration (Johnny Pate)

Marjorie Hyams, vbs, replaces Elliott.
New York, NY; June 28, 1949

5. Nothing but D Best (Denzil Best)

Personnel as above.
New York, NY; July 5, 1950

6. Geneva's Move (Denzil Best)

Personnel, date as 1.

7. I'll Never Smile Again

Personnel as 1.
New York, NY; February 7, 1951

8. They All Laughed

Al McKibbon, b, replaces Levy.
New York, NY; May 16, 1951

9. We'll Be Together Again

Personnel as 1.
New York, NY; February 7, 1951

10. Loose Leaf

Personnel as 1, Marjorie Hyams, vbs, replaces Elliott.
New York, NY; December 12, 1949

11. Carnegie Horizons (Shearing)

Personnel as above.
New York, NY; July 27, 1949

12. Conception (Shearing)

Find it here: https://www.mediafire.com/?7mbp4vxm9fi8zcq