Billy Taylor, American pianist and composer (b. 1921)
Billy Taylor (July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and from 1994 was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.A jazz activist, Taylor sat on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America, an organisation he founded in 1989, with Ann Ruckert, Herb Storfer and Phoebe Jacobs, to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, later including musicians who survived Hurricane Katrina.Taylor was a jazz educator, who lectured in colleges, served on panels and travelled worldwide as a jazz ambassador. Critic Leonard Feather once said, "It is almost indisputable that Dr. Billy Taylor is the world's foremost spokesman for jazz."
2010Dec, 28
Billy Taylor
Choose Another Date
Events on 2010
- 4Jan
Burj Khalifa
The Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world, officially opens in Dubai - 11Mar
2010 Pichilemu earthquake
Economist and businessman Sebastián Piñera is sworn in as President of Chile, while three earthquakes, the strongest measuring magnitude 6.9 and all centered next to Pichilemu, capital of Cardenal Caro province, hit central Chile during the ceremony. - 3Apr
IPad (1st generation)
Apple Inc. released the first generation iPad, a tablet computer. - 20Apr
Deepwater Horizon explosion
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months. - 31May
Gaza flotilla raid
Israeli Shayetet 13 commandos boarded the Gaza Freedom Flotilla while still in international waters trying to break the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip; nine Turkish civilians on the flotilla were killed in the ensuing violent affray.