Dr. Billy Taylor
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 the songs are available as midi, .pdf files, printed sheet
music recorded on tape or CD. All have been abbreviated on the server (snippets)
To order anything click here
For an oudated incomplete list of midi files click here
Select any title (by clicking on it) and you will
view one page of the song + hear the midi file.
midi Titoro (Piano Solo)