Kennedy Center's jazz season could use more variety and experimentation

Cover of Charlie ParkerKennedy Center's jazz season could use more variety and experimentation

By Matt Schudel

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, March 13, 2011

For years, it was reassuring to see Billy Taylor, perhaps the most eminent evangelist jazz has ever known, sitting in the audience or accepting an award on stage at the Kennedy Center. His vision helped get jazz accepted as a central part of our nation's cultural heritage, with an ambitious mix of large-scale festivals and concerts that make the Kennedy Center one of the greatest venues for jazz in the country.

Although Taylor had long since ceded responsibilities for booking and programming to the Kennedy Center's staff, his death in December left a huge inspirational void. During the first full season without Taylor behind the scenes, the center will pay homage to its longtime artistic director for jazz with a celebratory concert and festival Nov. 11 to 26.

The festival, called "Swing, Swing, Swing," will kick off Nov. 11 with Taylor's bassist and drummer, Chip Jackson and Winard Harper, accompanying an all-star lineup of pianists - Geri Allen, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Ramsey Lewis and Danilo Perez - and other musicians.

There will be plenty of vocals during the festival, with Jon Hendricks and Manhattan Transfer appearing together and with George Benson saluting Nat "King" Cole. For participatory fun, the Kennedy Center will open up the grand foyer for swing dancers - complete with dance instructors - and a variety of jazz and swing-oriented groups.

Other jazz highlights of the 2011-12 season include saxophonist Steve Wilson recreating the music of Charlie Parker's remarkable recording with strings (Oct. 7-8); the amazing father-son duo of Dorado and Samson Schmitt performing the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt (with Anat Cohen on clarinet) (Oct. 29); singers Tierney Sutton (Dec. 2) and Jane Monheit (Dec. 17); and trumpeter Nicholas Payton (Feb. 10, 2012).

Every year since 1996, the Kennedy Center has presented the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival - an idea Taylor developed. Some wondered at the beginning whether the festival would last beyond one year. Its success has been a testament to Taylor's vision and to the strengthening position of women in jazz. This year's Grammy Award for best new artist didn't go to Justin Bieber, after all - it went to jazz bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding, who will be at the Kennedy Center in May.

It would be nice, however, if the Women in Jazz Festival could look beyond the usual suspects of Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves and Geri Allen, who have appeared multiple times. There are dozens of lesser-known artists across the country who are just as deserving of a national showcase, including such singers as Nancy Marano, Lois Smith, Carol Sloane and Wesla Whitfield, pianists Lynne Arriale and Dena DeRose and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen.

With the international flavor of jazz becoming more pronounced each year, it's time for a Latin jazz festival - one that looks back to Mario Bauza, Machito and Chano Pozo and shows how the music of the Caribbean basin enriched North American jazz.

One of the great successes of Kennedy Center's jazz program has been its KC Jazz Club, a room that features leading musicians in an intimate cabaret setting. But it is open only four months of the year. When other venues are cutting back on jazz, the KC Jazz Club should be a year-round destination, with regular Friday and Saturday performances, plus Sunday matinees for people who don't like to stay out late.

Finally, several of the events next year seem to have inadvertently pointed the way toward a new programming idea that shows real promise. Drummer Roy Haynes, still relentlessly driving the beat at 85, will appear with his Fountain of Youth Band - young musicians in their 20s - on Oct. 14. Alto saxophonist Phil Woods, who turns 80 this year, will perform with his teenage protegee, saxophonist Grace Kelly, on Jan. 27, 2012.

Taylor often mentored younger musicians, including 21-year-old pianist Christian Sands, who will perform at the Nov. 11 concert in Taylor's honor. What better way to celebrate the memory of the man who launched jazz at the Kennedy Center than by inaugurating a series that brings the grand masters of jazz together with their young acolytes who will keep the music alive?

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VOA | Remembering Jazz 'Ambassador' Dr. Billy Taylor | USA | English

VOA | Remembering Jazz 'Ambassador' Dr. Billy Taylor | USA | English

Jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and educator Dr. Billy Taylor died of heart failure December 28 in New York City. He was 89. Dr. Taylor was also an author, lecturer, radio and television commentator, and an international ambassador of jazz.


When he wasn't presenting lectures or producing jazz programs on network television, Billy Taylor spent his free time composing and performing jazz. He appeared on more than 40 recordings, mostly with trios and quartets. He was 67 years old when he released his first album on his own label, Taylor-Made. 

Billy Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina on July 21, 1921. He began taking piano lessons from one of his uncles at age seven. Two of his greatest influences were jazz pianists Fats Waller and Art Tatum. But, Taylor once said it was a little-known musician who had the most impact on his music.

AP

Duke Ellington, left, and jazz pianist Billy Taylor shake hands on New York's Jazzmobile during a visit by the Ellington Band to the city's Harlem section in the early 1970s

"There was a man named Henry Grant, who was a confidante of Duke Ellington, who was a wonderful pianist and composer who opened the door for me, in terms of understanding the similarities between the impressionistic school of music and some of the things that Duke Ellington and other jazz musicians were doing," Taylor said.

Billy Taylor earned a degree in music from Virginia State College in 1942. Two years later, he moved to New York City and landed a job with the house band at the famed Birdland nightclub. He played piano there until 1951 when he formed the Billy Taylor Trio. Members of his trio included bassists Charles Mingus and Oscar Pettiford, as well as drummer Billy Cobham. In 1969, he became the first African American band director for a network television series, "The David Frost Show."

In addition to his work as a composer and performer, Billy Taylor was one of jazz's most dedicated supporters. He founded Jazzmobile, an organization that produces inner-city jazz concerts. He also hosted a weekly jazz program on public radio called "Jazz Alive"; he produced stories on jazz for the television magazine news show "CBS Sunday Morning"; and he was the Artistic Advisor for Jazz at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Taylor explained that his love for jazz came from his expertise on the piano and from performing.

"Everything that I've done stems from those two things; the fact that I love to play the piano and I love to perform for people," he said. "I also like to write music which other people play."

Billy Taylor received "Down Beat" magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was inducted into the International Association of Jazz Educator's Hall of Fame. He won a Grammy Award, two Peabody Awards, and an Emmy Award for his "CBS Sunday Morning" segment on Quincy Jones. In 1996, he performed in an all-star jazz tribute to his close friend, VOA jazz host Willis Conover.

AP

FILE - In this Nov. 5, 2007 file photo, musician Billy Taylor arrives for the 2007 Library Lions Benefit at the New York Public Library

Billy's gift for teaching earned him a Doctorate in Music Education from the University of Massachusetts. Until his death, he was a visiting professor at numerous American universities. He took an active interest in teaching jazz to younger students. He once remarked that today's school children have fewer opportunities to learn music in the classroom.

They don't get an opportunity to have access to musical instruments as I did when I was in public school," he said. "They don't have enough music teachers because most communities don't realize that the aesthetic part of the human being, the ability to express oneself through the arts is a very important part of growing up."

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Post Mortem - Jazz great Billy Taylor, pianist, educator & media personality, dies at 89

Cover of Billy TaylorPost Mortem - Jazz great Billy Taylor, pianist, educator & media personality, dies at 89

Billy Taylor, one of the musical treasures of Washington and the world, died last night, Dec. 28, at a hospital in New York City. He was 89 and died of a heart attack.

Dr. Taylor, as he was known to one and all, was a first-rate jazz pianist who grew up in Washington and was a graduate of Dunbar High School. He moved to New York in the early 1940s and was present at the birth of bebop, the new vernacular of music that transformed jazz. He played alongside Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and became a protege of the greatest jazz pianist ever, Art Tatum.

In the 1950s, Dr. Taylor began to branch out into broadcasting with a television series, "The Subject Is Jazz," and with radio programs. He appeared on CBS over the years, particuarly on "CBS Sunday Morning," interviewing and performing many of the great artists in jazz.

Dr. Taylor -- who earned a doctorate in education, by the way -- had been the artistic adviser for jazz programming at the Kennedy Center and was a constant presence at concerts at the center. He often performed with his own trio and other groups and helped make the Kennedy Center one of the most important venues for jazz in America. He launched the annual Women in Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center and was instrumental in developing other concert series.

For several years, he was the host of an NPR series, "Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center," and many people considered him the foremost jazz educator of his -- or any -- time.

Dr. Taylor received every award there is in jazz and the arts, including the National Medal of Arts in 1992, and was designated a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988.

I knew Dr. Taylor somewhat, and I treasure the memory of visiting him once at the Watergate hotel, interrupting him as he was practicing on an electric piano in his room. We sat and talked for more than an hour for background for a story you can find here

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