MUSIC KEEPS US YOUNG: Liner Notes
By Ira Gitler

It was in 1952 that I went into the studio with Billy Taylor for Prestige Records. I was 23, six and a half years Taylor's junior but light years away in terms of experience. Here was a man who, as a teenaged visitor to New York, encountered Art Tatum, Clarence Profit and Thelonious Monk; played in the mid-1940s with Ben Webster and Dizzy Gillespie on 52nd Street; toured in Europe with Don Redman's band, and then remained in Paris on his own for a few months; and had just spent the year of 1951 leading the "house" rhythm section at Birdland, accompanying a variety of musicians starting with Charlie Parker and covering the entire range of jazz with artists such as Slim Gaillard, Lee Konitz, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, Terry Gibbs, Stan Getz, and Gerry Mulligan. It was in this period that I really became aware of Taylor, although I had heard him on record in the mid-'40s on a 78 by tenor saxophonist Walter "Foots" Thomas called The Bottle's Empty.

Now it was time for Billy to establish himself as a trio leader. He assembled a fine rhythm team, Earl May on bass and Charlie Smith on drums (both left-handers incidentally), with which to interact, thereby setting a tradition that continues to the present. The Taylor Trio could be heard in those days at Le Downbeat, a cozy club at the northeast corner of 8th Avenue and 54th Street. I was an habitué, so by the time the first Prestige trio session came up, we were not strangers. It probably wouldn't have mattered if we were. Billy Taylor, among his other attributes, has an upbeat, welcoming personality that has served him in good stead as one of jazz's most important ambassadors. That he was also a thorough professional made it very easy to work with him.

In addition to the original trio sessions of November and December '52, there was a memorable mambo date of May '53 with Charlie Smith (away from the traps and on conga) sitting next to Jose Mangual and Uba Nieto, Machito's percussionists; and Machito, under his real name, Frank Grillo, standing in on maracas. Billy had played for a couple of months with Machito's orchestra in 1946 and went on to become one of the active participants in the development of what was called Afro-Cuban jazz.

Although I produced no more sessions with Billy, I continued to annotate his albums including the excellent Billy Taylor Trio at Town Hall. Eventually he ended his affiliation with Prestige and, from 1955 forward my connection with the label was strictly as a writer. In the '60s, as New York editor of Down Beat in two different stretches, my path continued to cross with his. Billy became an influential jazz deejay on WLIB and later on WNEW. In mid-decade he helped found Jazzmobile and served as its first president. Educating people about jazz was part of this, something Billy has always done in a variety of ways on many levels: articles for the Saturday Review and books such as Jazz Piano; collegiate lectures and courses; and, not least of all, his ever-enlightening conversation. His doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts certainly hasn't slowed him in this regard.

Dr. Taylor's impact on television began in the '50s with his series The Subject is Jazz. In the '70s he was musical director for David Frost's show and in the '80s he became a familiar face as a reporter on the arts for CBS' Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt.

Through all of this Billy has maintained a full playing schedule, keeping his chops at the level to which he has accustomed us. Most of my contact with him, other than the telephone, has been when he is in a playing situation and this doesn't leave too much time for conversation beyond pleasantries. However in the '80s he consented to be the subject of one of my classes in adult jazz education at the New School, and we were also able to catch up with one another as fellow judges at the Jacksonville Jazz Festival's Piano Competition.

The '90s have seen no diminution of activity. He is currently the Advisor for Jazz to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and continues to head the jazz program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. At the latter his long running concert series features guest artists in a unique format where the guest not only plays with the trio but is interviewed by Billy and answers questions from the audience. I have enjoyed many of these over the past several years and witnessed the transition from the bass/drum duo of Victor Gaskin and Bobby Thomas to Chip Jackson and Steve Johns.

Jackson, from Rockville Center, NY, has played with Gary Burton, Woody Herman, Horace Silver, Betty Carter, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Stan Getz, Red Rodney and for two substantial stretches, Elvin Jones. Johns, from Boston, has played with Gary Bartz, Count Basie, Nat Adderley, Thomas Chapin and George Russell. Individually and as a team, Chip and Steve rank right up there with the all star members of Billy's lifetime roster.

Music Keeps Us Young

This brings us to the music at hand, a marvelous mix of five Taylor originals; one each from Tizol, Coltrane and Freddie Hubbard; and three from the Great American Songbook Billy has written extended works for symphony orchestras and dance companies, but perhaps his best known piece is "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" which became an anthem of the civil rights movement of the '60s. Most recently it has been heard under the opening and closing credits of Rob Reiner's Ghosts of Mississippi as sung, respectively, by Dionne Farris and Nina Simone. We hear the instrumental version and who better to play it than its composer. To celebrate his association with the brand new Arkadia Jazz label, he also offers a new blues tune, "Arkadia Blues", which he delivers with his characteristic combination of sophisticated swing and bedrock feeling. He and Johns further energize the performance by trading choruses before the final theme.

"One for the Woofer" was written by Billy with Oscar Pettiford in mind and you can hear echoes of the great O.P. in the song's line. Appropriately, the theme is stated by Taylor and Jackson with Chip's dexterity and imagination prominently featured throughout. The "fours" between the two soloists are particularly invigorating. Incidentally, "Woofer" was recorded with four flutes by Billy for Riverside in 1959.

The other Taylor originals show off his reflective side. Ballade, part of a suite written for dancer Rachel Lamport, creates a definite bluesy mood even if it is not a blues in form. It was first performed by a Jazzmobile All Star group with Frank Wess and Jimmy Owens. Interlude, a caressing essence, was done by Billy for Prestige's Moodsville label way back when.

If these tracks by a man long considered to be a master of ballads put you in a mellow groove, try his exploration of "Body and Soul", Johnny Green's evergreen melody, which at ten and a half minutes is the longest track in the album. Starting with a full chorus played with left hand alone, it is a tour de force of the idiom and Jackson chips in with a complementary solo.

"Wouldn't It Be Loverly" is treated to a relaxed, finger-snapping tempo with comments by Chip and an easy-walking solo from Billy. On the other hand "Lover Come Back to Me", after a short intro, reveals Taylor's swift and highly articulate single line. Little did Sigmund Romberg know that his song would be one of the most durable jazz vehicles. This version sustains its pace from beginning to end.

Instead of treating Coltrane's "Naima" in a slow, pensive manner, Billy keeps its plaintive quality but cloaks it in a gentle Latinate rhythm in which Jackson's firm, active underpinning plays an important part. Taylor was playing it this way at New York's Storyville in 1977. Chip is heard again in solo as part of Freddie Hubbard's "Up Jumped Spring", a lovely line that is tailor-made for Billy's sunny stylings while Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which evolved after its Ellington debut into a drum feature via Jo Jones and, in his wake, Oliver Jackson, here spotlights Johns as the culminator in a straight ahead, hard swinging performance by Taylor.

This is Music Keeps Us Young. At 75 Billy Taylor is living proof.