Billy Taylor Trio

Pianist, composer, teacher and lecturer, television and radio personality, recording artist and author...Billy Taylor is all of these. For more than six decades, Dr. Billy Taylor's enthusiastic and personal commitment to make jazz a part of the American mainstream have been rewarded by recognition and acclaim by his peers, critics, educators, students, enthusiastic listeners, and five US presidents. Billy Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina on July 24, 1921. His father was a dentist and his mother a schoolteacher and they encouraged their son's creativity. After the family moved to Washington, D.C., for a more cosmopolitan life, he began studying music with Elmira Streets. Billy experimented with drums, guitar and saxophone but soon settled on classical piano study. The Billy Taylor Trio's best known recording in the UK is probably I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel To Be Free) as it was the theme tune to Barry Norman's FILM'72 and onwards for all the subsequent years until he retired. http://www.billytaylorjazz.com