Billy Taylor (born July 24, 1921 in Greenville, North Carolina) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. He is currently the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville. Since 1994, he has been the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Taylor was born in Greenville, but moved to Washington, D.C. when he was 5. He graduated fro...
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Billy Taylor (born July 24, 1921 in Greenville, North Carolina) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. He is currently the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville. Since 1994, he has been the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Taylor was born in Greenville, but moved to Washington, D.C. when he was 5. He graduated from Virginia State College with a B.S. in Music in 1942, and has been playing piano professionally since 1944, starting with Ben Webster's Quartet on New York's 52nd Street. He later became the house pianist at Birdland, where he performed with the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. He was a protege of jazz pianist Art Tatum. In 1958, he was the Musical Director of NBC's The Subject Is Jazz, the first ever television series on the subject of jazz.
In 1964, Dr. Billy Taylor founded New York's Jazzmobile, which provides arts...
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