"Jo came to me and said, I've got a gig for you," Billy remembers, some fifty seven years after the fact.
Billy was so busy at Birdland that he didn't think he could get the time off. It was Billy's mentor, Jo Jones, who set up the Storyville gig, and lined up the personnel, with Charles Mingus on bass and Marcus Foster on drums. This was the beginning of a two-year stint as house pianist at that legendary jazz club, an unbroken continuum as soloist with all-star groups which included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Jo Jones, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson and Art Blakey. In 1949 Billy got a call to sub for Al Haig with Charlie Parker and Strings at Birdland. He was then, as now, such a master of the piano that it was effortless." Of course I knew Billy's work, having interviewed him on the radio. I'd heard Jimmy Blanton, of course, but Mingus, his sound and his technique were really a revelation.
Hentoff remembers the gig because "it was the first time I heard Charles Mingus. Writer Nat Hentoff, then a Staff Announcer a WMEX, regularly hosted remote broadcasts from two Boston clubs, the Savoy, and Storyville, run by impresario George Wein in the early 50s, before he founded the Newport Jazz Festival. The set includes "What Is This Thing Called Love," "I'm Beginning to See the Light," "Laura," "Lady Bird," "Tea for Two," and "Three Little Words." Here's the Jazz Promo Services press release with more background on the performance ( UPDATE: also see Doug Ramsey's knowledgeable take on Mr. The sound is crystal-clear by 1951 radio-broadcast standards, with good playing from both Taylor and Mingus.
Pianist Billy Taylor's website has posted audio of a half-hour set at Boston's Storyville club in 1951, featuring Charles Mingus on bass and Marquis Foster on drums, with Nat Hentoff doing between-song stage announcements.
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