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LEGISLATIVE  RESOLUTION mourning the death of legendary Jazz Pianist Dr.
William Taylor

WHEREAS, It is the custom of this Legislative Body  to  pay  tribute  to
citizens  of  the  State  of  New York whose lifework and civic endeavor
served to enhance the quality of life in their communities and the great
State of New York; and
  WHEREAS, Dr. William Taylor of the Bronx, New York, died  on  Tuesday,
December 28, 2010, at the age of 89; and
  WHEREAS,  William  Edward  Taylor,  Jr.  was born in Greenville, North
Carolina, on July 24, 1921, and grew up in Washington, DC;  his  father,
William, was a dentist; his mother, Antoinette, was a schoolteacher; and
  WHEREAS,  William  Taylor  had his first piano lesson at age seven and
later studied music at what is now Virginia  State  University;  shortly
after  moving  to  New  York in 1943, within two days of his arrival, he
later recalled that he began working  with  the  tenor  saxophonist  Ben
Webster at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street, and he remained a fixture on
that celebrated nightclub row for many years; and
  WHEREAS,  William  Taylor  had  the  technique,  the knowledge and the
temperament to straddle the old and the new; his adaptability made him a
popular sideman with both swing and bebop musicians and led to his being
hired in 1949 as the house pianist at Birdland; and
  WHEREAS, In 1951, William Taylor formed his own trio, which  was  soon
working at clubs like the Copacabana in New York and the London House in
Chicago;  within  a  few  years,  he  was  lecturing about jazz at music
schools and writing articles about it for DownBeat, Saturday Review  and
other  publications;  he later had a long-running concert-lecture series
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and
  WHEREAS, William Taylor also became one of the few jazz  musicians  to
establish a successful separate career in radio and television; in 1958,
he  was  the musical director of an NBC television show, "The Subject Is
Jazz"; a year later, the Harlem radio station WLIB hired him as  a  disc
jockey;  in  1962  he  moved to WNEW, but he returned to WLIB in 1964 as
both disc jockey and program director, and remained in  those  positions
until  1969; he was later a founding partner of Inner City Broadcasting,
which bought WLIB in 1971; and
  WHEREAS, Commercial radio became increasingly inhospitable to jazz  in
the  1960s,  but  William  Taylor found a home at National Public Radio,
where he was a familiar voice for more than two decades, first  as  host
of  "Jazz  Alive" in the late '70s, and most recently on "Billy Taylor's
Jazz at the Kennedy Center"; that particular series, on which he  intro-
duced  live  performances and interviewed the performers, made its debut
in the fall of 1994 and remained in production until the fall  of  2002;
and
  WHEREAS,  In 1968, William Taylor was appointed to New York City's new
Cultural Council, along with  Leonard  Bernstein,  Richard  Rodgers  and
other  prominent figures in the arts; he later held similar positions on
both the state and federal level and until recently was  an  adviser  to
the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington; and
  WHEREAS, William Taylor earned a doctorate in music education from the
University  of  Massachusetts,  Amherst  in  1975;  "Dr.  Taylor", as he
preferred to be called, was a living refutation  of  the  stereotype  of
jazz musicians as unschooled, unsophisticated and inarticulate, an image
that  was  prevalent  when he began his career in the 1940s, and that he
did as much as any other musician to erase; and
  WHEREAS, Dr. Taylor probably had a higher profile on  television  than
any  other  jazz  musician  of  his  generation;  he had a long run as a

cultural correspondent on the CBS News program "Sunday Morning" and  was
the  musical  director  of  David Frost's syndicated nighttime talk show
from 1969 to 1972; and
  WHEREAS,  In  1980,  Dr. Taylor was a member of an advisory panel that
called for greater support for jazz from the National Endowment for  the
Arts; he was given a National Medal of Arts in 1992; and
  WHEREAS,  A  pianist  with impeccable technique and an elegant, almost
self-effacing style, Dr. Taylor worked with some of the biggest names in
jazz early in his career and later led a trio that worked  regularly  in
New  York  nightclubs  and recorded many albums; but he left his mark on
jazz less as a musician than as a proselytizer, spreading the gospel  of
jazz as a serious art form given in high school and at college lectures,
on radio and television, and on government panels and foundation boards;
and
  WHEREAS, Predeceased by his son, Duane, Dr. William Taylor is survived
by his wife, Theodora, and his daughter, Kim; and
  WHEREAS,  Armed  with  a  humanistic  spirit,  imbued  with a sense of
compassion, and comforted by a loving family, Dr. William Taylor  leaves
behind  a  legacy  which  will  long endure the passage of time and will
remain as a comforting memory to all he served and befriended; he was  a
true asset to society; now, therefore, be it
  RESOLVED,  That  this  Legislative  Body pause in its deliberations to
mourn the death of legendary Jazz Pianist Dr.  William Taylor; and be it
further
  RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be tran-
smitted to the family of Dr. William Taylor.