[Dixielandjazz] Billy Taylor and the Kennedy Center's swing festival

[Robert Ringwald]

Towards the bottom on the schedule, note the Firecracker Jazz Band.  We had them at our Sacramento Festival a couple years ago.  


Kennedy Center Swings to Taylor's Tune
by Matt Schudel
Washington Post, November 6, 2011
A familiar figure will be missing this week as the Kennedy Center opens a two-week
festival devoted to jazz and swing. For the first time since 1994, Billy Taylor will
not be there.
The multifaceted jazz pianist, educator and broadcaster, who served as the Kennedy
Center's artistic adviser for jazz, died last December at 89. He was such a constant,
affable presence that it's easy to forget how much he changed the musical life of
Washington.
"For years, the Kennedy Center didn't have any regular way of presenting jazz," Kevin
A. Struthers, the Kennedy Center's jazz programming director, said last week. "The
year before Dr. Taylor started in 1994, there were four jazz concerts. Now there
are hundreds."
This week, one of those concerts will pay tribute to the man who got it all started.
"Jazz on the Elevens" -- presented at the Eisenhower Theater on the 11th day of the
11th month of 2011 -- will bring together many of Taylor's musical friends, as well
as his former bassist and drummer, for a night devoted to his music.
It will be the opening-night concert of a 16-day festival devoted to swing that features
an eclectic blend of performers, from established jazz stars Jon Hendricks and George
Benson to Israeli hip-hop violinist Miri Ben-Ari, the Western swing band Asleep at
the Wheel and Afro Blue, a Howard University vocal group that has become a nationwide
sensation with its appearances on the NBC talent show "The Sing-Off."
"We are looking at different types of music that swing," said Struthers, who joined
the Kennedy Center in 1995 and began working alongside Taylor a year later. "He and
I would always talk about the importance of swing as a rhythm. He was adamant that
jazz is a dance music. That's how this came about, this whole swing event."
In a first for the Kennedy Center, dance floors will be placed near the Millennium
Stage -- dubbed the "KC Dance Hall" for the occasion -- and free swing dance classes
will be offered. The D.C.-based Eric Felten Jazz Orchestra will perform at three
of the dance sessions, including an appearance Nov. 25 with the eclectic singer Nellie
McKay.
The swing festival was one of the last Kennedy Center programs that Taylor helped
plan. He reached his musical maturity in the Swing Era of the 1930s and 1940s, when
the jazz of Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford and many others was the
dominant form of popular music.
But for Taylor and other musicians, swing was more than a musical artifact. It is
the elusive rhythmic bounce that creates the unmistakable feeling of jazz. It's easier
to feel, or to dance to, than to describe.
"It's the way notes are put in motion," said Chip Jackson, Taylor's longtime bassist.
"The way the notes are put in motion creates the emotion."
Jackson and Winard Harper, Taylor's former drummer, will form the rhythm section
for a revolving group of performers on Friday, including saxophonist Frank Wess and
pianists Geri Allen, Cyrus Chestnut, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Danilo Perez. The concert
will highlight what is probably the least-known part of Taylor's career: his composing.
The best-known of his 350 works was "I Wish I Knew What It Means to Be Free," which
became something of a civil rights anthem in the 1960s. It was a favorite of the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s, who often stopped by a New York club where Taylor
was playing to request "that Baptist gospel tune."
When Taylor was growing up in Washington, he met Jelly Roll Morton -- the self-proclaimed
inventor of jazz -- and studied with Duke Ellington's piano teacher. Later, in New
York, he became a protege of Art Tatum, the pianist who is still universally considered
the greatest keyboard talent in the history of jazz.
As a teacher -- he had a doctorate in education -- Taylor considered it his duty
to pass along the lessons he learned from the masters who came before him. In the
last five years of his life, he became a mentor to a teenage piano prodigy from Connecticut
named Christian Sands, who will perform at Friday's concert.
"He said he saw a little of me in him," said Sands, now 22 and a rising star in jazz.
"A lot of times, we would just hang out, and I would listen to stories he would tell
and listen to him talk about the world."
Sands learned many of Taylor's tunes and absorbed musical lessons -- including the
use of richly voiced harmonies in a pianist's left hand.
"Modern pianists use the left hand almost like an anchor," Sands said. "Dr. Taylor
was a master at playing thick harmonies and thick chords."
They also spoke of travel and painting and of Taylor's apprenticeship with Tatum
and his friendships with the great figures of jazz.
Sands acknowledges other influences on his musical life, from Cecil Taylor to Richard
Wagner, but he also recognizes that he has been handed a special legacy to preserve
the memory and music of Billy Taylor.
"He's helped me develop my sound and influenced me as a person," Sands said. "He
really touched me. I will never let his name die."
________________________
A Jazztravaganza
"Swing, Swing, Swing" at the Kennedy Center will be a 16-day extravaganza of jazz,
pop, Western swing and even violin hip-hop, Friday through Nov. 26. Here's a glance
at the offerings.
Friday, Nov. 11: Introduction of the KC Dance Hall, a dance floor installed at the
north end of the Grand Foyer, where visitors can dance to live music through Nov.
25. Free. "Jazz on the Elevens," a tribute to the late jazz great Billy Taylor featuring
pianists Toshiko Akiyoshi and Danilo Perez, former Taylor Trio members and jazz vocal
group Afro Blue from Howard University. 8 p.m. $35-$50. Dance Hall performance by
the Eric Felten Jazz Orchestra. 6 p.m. (5 p.m. dance lesson). Free.
Saturday, Nov. 12: Dance Hall performance by Smooth and EZ with DJ V Smooth. 6 p.m.
(5 p.m. dance lesson). Free.
Sunday, Nov. 13: Dance Hall performance by Gypsy swing violinist Tony Ballog. 6 p.m.
Free.
Monday, Nov. 14: Dance Hall performance by the U.S. Army Blues jazz ensemble. 6 p.m.
Free.
Tuesday, Nov. 15: Dance Hall performance of Dixieland swing by the Firecracker Jazz
Band. 6 p.m. Free.
Wednesday, Nov. 16: Dance Hall performance of avant-garde swing-era jazz by the Ghost
Train Orchestra. 6 p.m. Free.
Thursday, Nov. 17: Dance Hall performance of Western swing by Asleep at the Wheel.
6 and 9 p.m. (5 and 8:30 p.m. dance classes). Free.
Friday, Nov. 18: Dance Hall performance by the Eric Felten Jazz Orchestra. 6 and
10 p.m. (5 and 9:30 p.m. dance classes). Free.
Saturday, Nov. 19: Jazz singing group Manhattan Transfer conducts a master class
for two college jazz vocal groups. 1 p.m. $12. Dance Hall performance by the University
of North Texas Jazz Singers. 6 p.m. Free.
Sunday, Nov. 20: Manhattan Transfer performs with 90-year-old jazz master Jon Hendricks
and the jazz vocal group Afro Blue, from Howard University. 7 p.m. $20-$65. Dance
Hall performance by jazz vocal group Afro Blue and the Howard University Jazz Ensemble.
6 p.m. Free.
Monday, Nov. 21: Dance Hall performance of Cuban-style salsa by the band Timba Street.
6 p.m. (5 p.m. dance class). Free.
Tuesday, Nov. 22: Dance Hall performance of Cajun swing by the Red Stick Ramblers.
6 p.m. (5 p.m. dance class). Free.
Wednesday, Nov. 23: Dance Hall performance by Israeli hip-hop violinist Miri Ben-Ari.
6 p.m. Free.
Thursday, Nov. 24: Thanksgiving swing dance party with Daryl Davis. 6 and 9 p.m.
(5 and 8:30 p.m. dance classes) Free.
Friday, Nov. 25: Tribute to Nat King Cole featuring guitarist and vocalist George
Benson and the NSO Pops. 1:30 and 8 p.m. $20-$85. Dance Hall performance by vocalist
Nellie McKay and the Eric Felten Jazz Orchestra. 6 and 10 p.m. 5 and 9:30 p.m. dance
classes) Free.
Saturday, Nov. 26: Tribute to Nat King Cole featuring guitarist and vocalist George
Benson and the NSO Pops. 8 p.m. $20-$85.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
530/ 642-9551 Office
916/ 806-9551 Cell
Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV

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