Billy Taylor, RIP

Dr. Billy Taylor, a good (sometimes great) player and composer, and inarguably one of the great popularizers of jazz music (an ambassador to the larger world in much of his work as an educator and dj and television bandleader/music director) died yesterday, as Jeff Meyerson, via Rick Robinson and Bill Crider, informed many of us this evening.

Not the best sound quality, but an example of one of the sessions he hosted as the musical director of the 1970s DAVID FROST SHOW:


A fine perfomance of one of his own best compositions, "C A G":


And an old favorite embed of mine...a complete episode of Taylor's 1950s tv series, The Subject is Jazz:


I saw him in concert only once, but would have difficulty toting up all the hours I've heard him on radio or enjoyed the music he helped present on television.