Billy Taylor - Legacy

Legacy

Taylor appeared on hundreds of albums and composed more than 300 songs during his career spanned over six decades. His 1963 song, "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free" dealt with civil rights issues and became the unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It was selected as "one of the greatest songs of the sixties" by the New York Times and was the theme music of the 1996 film "Ghosts of Mississippi". His 1967 instrumental recording of the tune is widely known in the United Kingdom as the opening theme music for the long-running TV series The Film Programme, for many years hosted by Barry Norman.

Engaging and educating more audience and young people had been a central part of Taylor's career. He holds the Wilbur D. Barrett Chair of Music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale, and holds 23 honorary degrees. Besides publishing instructional books on jazz, he taught jazz course at Howard University, Long Island University, The Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he earned his Masters and Ph.D in 1975.

His extensive appearance in television series and jazz educational programs brought the music he loves to the masses at the grass roots level as well as more formal arenas. He's sometimes more known as a television personality than a pianist. He was quoted saying in a 2007 article in the Post Magazine: "there's no question that being an advocate eclipsed my reputation as a musician. It was my doing. I wanted to prove to people that jazz has an audience. I had to do that for me."