Billy Taylor tribute honors more than just his music

By Bob Karlovits, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Music is only a part of the Billy Taylor story.

The tribute this weekend to the pianist (1921-2010) will have plenty of jazz with performers such as trumpeter Jimmy Owens and pianist Gerald Clayton. But, they insist, Taylor also needs to be remembered as an educator, an advocate of jazz and a protector of his musicians.

"Billy was very concerned with the plight of musicians who had no pensions or health care," Owens says. "He was very astute at taking care of his musicians."

Clayton says the tribute concert on the North Side naturally will present some of the music Taylor composed, but also will have plenty of comments about Taylor's work and advocacy of the music.

"His playing was really deep," he says "It's inspiring to look at his energy. But he also was an eloquent spokesman for the music."

The tribute concert is an appropriate part of the Guild's 25th season as a concert venue. Taylor was the first featured performer there in 1987. After that show, he became a steady guest at the Guild.

The shows will feature duo piano of Gerald Clayton and Christian Sands in the first half. The second will be a band of Owens. pianist Norman Simmons, saxophonist Houston Person, bassist Paul West, drummer David Gibson and singer Melba Joyce.

Taylor was a remarkable jazz figure who could have shaped a solid career from his performing. But besides that, he was a composer, professor of jazz at East Carolina University, artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and a lecturer who also had a long-running spot on CBS "Sunday Morning."

Robin Bell-Stevens insists Taylor would put his work as an educator at the top of his list of accomplishments. She is the president and CEO Jazzmobile of Harlem, which was co-founded by Taylor in 1964, as a way of taking music and the concert experience to the streets.

He won a Peabody Award for Jazzmobile to go along with his Grammy and Emmy awards.

Jazzmobile performs more than 40 concerts throughout the New York City area, has a jazz-education program in conjunction with City College of New York and presents lectures, workshops and performance opportunities to players of all levels.

Bell-Stevens says Taylor was the first person to observe that "jazz is America's classical music," the phrase that has become a mantra for jazz fans everywhere. He also saw the need to educate performers and listeners.

That led to his Saturday Jazz Workshops, aimed at letting younger players perform with the more experienced, a TV show in New York called "The Subject is Jazz," and his work on CBS.

But while he was acting an educator, he was leading his trio and composing. That music will be in focus during the performances this weekend.

But Owens says his work as a leader took on other roles, too.

Owens recalls how he led the band on TV's "The David Frost Show" in the late '60s and early '70s, taking jazz to a public that wasn't familiar with it.

In that role, he also negotiated a contract for his musicians that provided pay about twice the standard of the American Federation of Musicians.

Owens also says Taylor made sure to make pension payments for bands he led so musicians would get money from the union when they retired.

Clayton, 33, did not perform with Taylor, but has become an admirer of his work.

"I have learned what an important voice of jazz he was," he says.

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