Listening to Prestige Records Part 95: Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor's long and illustrious career includes a number of trio sessions for Prestige, which were released on 78, on 45 EP (Billy Taylor Trio Vols. 1-4), on 10-inch LP (Billy Taylor Trio Vols. 1-3), on 12-inch LP (Billy Taylor Trio Vols. 1-2), and even on the almost completely forgotten 16 2/3 LP format (Billy Taylor Trio--Let's Get Away From It All). And all of it is pretty close to completely unavailable online, either streaming or download. And it doesn't seem to have been reissued, ether on later Prestige or Fantasy/Prestige or Original Jazz Classics, which is strange considering Dr. Bill's popularity and the fact that P-F/P-OJC left very few stones unturned. What I was able to hear is lush, romantic and thoughtful -- beautiful piano jazz for a Sunday morning by a master.

There were eight songs on this session, which is a lot. Presumably the engineering for a piano trio is relatively simple, and Taylor, May and Smith had played together a lot, so there wouldn't have been much hesitation.