ABSTRACT
Looking at Billy Taylor's impressive discography accompanying became something of a speciality for him, not least because after leading his own trio at the Downbeat, he became the house pianist at Birdland, playing for just about everybody. Jumping back in time from Birdland to soon after his time at the Onyx with Dizzy, Billy had made his first trio discs in 1944 with some of the great names in the swing era, bassist Al Hall and the legendary drummer Jimmy Crawford, but he pointed out that in terms of collective skill, his first band with Ben Webster was even better. Those first discs were made for Savoy, but within a few years the catalogue that seemed to feature Billy the most was Prestige. Although Billy's roots were in stride, he seemed to the author to straddle all the styles of jazz piano.
