Born in Greenville,North Carolina, Billy began his music education at the age of seven in Washington D.C. He matriculated to Virginia State College and graduated with a Bachlors of science degree. After college he moved to New York and two days after his arrival he was playing piano with the Ben Webster Quartet in the Three Deuces on 52nd Street. This was the start of a career as a pianist, composer, arranger, actor, author, lecturer and radio-television personality.
The writer of some three hundred songs, Billy has had twelve books published on jazz and jazz piano playing. A member of ASCAP, he has written and arranged special material for Ethel Smith, Tito Puente, Slim Gaillard, Edmundo Ross, Eddie South, Charlie Parker and rnany other top stars in the entertainment field.
Billy's art has a simplicity untrained ears can enjoy and an eloquence that can be movingly sensed even when it is not fully understood. Billy possesses a fabulous technique which enables him to present his most intricate passages with unbelievable ease, and a touch with which he exacts the most delicate and rapturous sounds in his more moody moments at the keyboard. One of the pioneers in the intriguing wedding of Latin rhythm and the inventive modern jazz melodic line, Billy's Latin originals show a crystaline integration that is full of both excitement and creative fancy.
Billy was appointed by President Nixon to the National Council on the Arts.
All of these are available as midi, .pdf files, printed sheet music recorded on tape or CD.
NOTICE
Until Licencing agreements are signed with ASCAP,
BMI and the FOX AGENCY, most midis will not be
available on line.