Back in the 20's, when Taylor was young child, pop music used the swing feeling of jazz and even many of the same harmonies, which is why so many popular songs like "Bye Bye Blackbird" became jazz standards. Jazz isn't in our popular culture anymore. This is fascinating, because it points out one of the biggest obstacles many aspiring jazz musicians face today: they haven't heard much jazz by the time they start learning to play it themselves. So by the time he actually began learning to play jazz piano, he had already internalized the sounds of jazz, just as a toddler has already internalized the sounds of their language by the time they begin to speak fluently. In fact, he would have heard jazz and jazz-related pop music on an almost daily basis, at the same time he was hearing language. Taylor was born in 1021, at a time when jazz could be heard everywhere in his local Washington D.C.
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We begin learning language by listening to people speak, long before we ourselves begin speaking. Here's one example, which draws from the way Billy Taylor himself learned to play jazz: I've often pondered his statement and it's gradually shaped my whole approach to teaching jazz, rock, pop, and even classical improvisation. He didn't elaborate on this much, but I knew that his remark came from his deep thinking about the subject. I first met him in 1982 at the Jazz In July summer program he developed at The University of Massachusetts, and he taught me a great deal over the course of 4-5 years.īilly often told me "Improvisation is learned the same way we learn language." One of the big thrills in my life was studying jazz piano with the great Billy Taylor.