- published: 14 Jul 2010
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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 since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Taylor was a Jazz activist. He sat on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America. In 1989, Billy Taylor, Ann Ruckert, Herb Storfer and Phoebe Jacobs started The Jazz Foundation to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, later including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina.
Billy Taylor was also one of the foremost jazz educators. He 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."
Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina but moved to Washington, D.C. when he was five. He grew up in a musical family and learned to play different instruments as a child, including guitar, drums and saxophone. But he was most successful at the piano and took classical piano lessons with Henry Grant, the same teacher that had educated Duke Ellington a generation earlier. He made his first professional appearance playing keyboard at the age of 13 and the compensation was one dollar. Taylor attended Dunbar High School, America's first high school for African American students. He went to Virginia State College and majored in sociology. Pianist Dr. Undine Smith Moore noticed young Taylor's talent in piano and he changed his major to music, graduating with a degree in music in 1942.
Hiram Winard Harper (b. June 4, 1962, Baltimore) is an American jazz drummer.
Harper played in the 1980s with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, and Betty Carter, the last for four years. While working with Carter he met Wycliffe Gordon, with whom he would collaborate repeatedly. From 1988 to 1993 he worked with his brother, trumpeter Philip Harper, in the group The Harper Brothers, alongside musicians such as Justin Robinson, Javon Jackson, Walter Blanding, Kiyoshi Kitagawa, Stephen Scott, Kevin Hays, Michael Bowie, and Nedra Wheeler. After the dissolution of the Harper brothers, Winard went on to record several albums as a leader. In the early 2000s he worked with his own sextet, including for performances at Lincoln Center in New York City. He played with Avery Sharpe in 2008.
Actors: Mark Straker (producer), Mark Straker (writer), William Honeyball (editor), Roberto Gomez Martin (director), Junade Khan (actor), Jamie Dorrington (actor), Jonathan Renner (actor), Ryan Hanley (actor), Graeme Curran (composer),
Genres: Short, Thriller,Actors: Tom Sizemore (actor), Rebecca De Mornay (actress), Novella Nelson (actress), Richard Roundtree (actor), Aaron Lee Lopez (editor), Kether Donohue (actress), Bettina Skye (actress), Misha Zubarev (miscellaneous crew), Steve Rimpici (actor), Misha Zubarev (producer), Nathan Buffaloe (miscellaneous crew), David Wilson (writer), David Wilson (actor), David Wilson (producer), Michael Power (actor),
Plot: Timothy James 'TJ' Williams (David Wilson) is a streetwise detective whose checkered career, family life and long standing friendship with the would-be mayor, police chief Hamilton Markham (Tom Sizemore), spins out of control and teeters on the brink of catastrophe as a result of a bust gone bad. While his life begins to crumble, his fast fading future is bartered for political gain by his former best friend and boss, a mayor with her eye on a Senate seat (Rebecca De Mornay) and an ambitious, activist 'man-of-the-cloth,' the Rev. Alonso Sparks (Richard Roundtree). The political machinery, geared to grind up Williams as a bad cop, has a wrench tossed into the works by the detective, who with the help of his partner, Angel Santangelo (Jaime Santana), gets back on the job to reclaim his reputation and his dignity in spite of their worst efforts.
Keywords: african-american, bad-cop, cop, corrupt-cop, corruption, detective, drugs, gun, gun-shooting, internal-affairsActors: Rosemary Howard (actress), Ashton Crosby (actor), Alexandra McDougall (actress), Lucy Y. Robinson (actress), Kyle Erha (actor), Andrea Garmun (actress), Gabriel Mara (miscellaneous crew), Daniel Cooperbey (director), Hank Torrance (actor), Libby Krall (actress), Di Longo (producer), John Motay (actor), Brita Ahmann (miscellaneous crew), Renee Brown (miscellaneous crew), Marie Legge (miscellaneous crew),
Plot: "Tick Tock" is the story about a mysterious antique gypsy pendant watch that warns the wearer when they have only 13 minutes to live. Just enough time to pray, say goodbye to loved ones, repent your sins and save your soul ... or not. Late one night in a quiet New England home, Jane Taylor sits down to watch TV like any other night. Little does she know that she's about to suffer a fatal heart attack. Tick Tock, Tick Tock, the pendant watch ticks the precious minutes away. Will Jane remember the curse of the watch before it's too late? Will she repent her sins or will Evil take her soul? After the funeral, family and friends gather at the TAYLOR home to remember Jane and comfort each other in their grief, but it doesn't take long before dysfunction takes over and the obnoxious sister-in-law Lizzt schemes to get her hands on the gold pendant watch.
Genres: Comedy,Actors: Oliver Ford Davies (actor), Steve Dent (miscellaneous crew), Rebecca Eaton (producer), Albert Finney (actor), Julian Holloway (actor), Bryan Pringle (actor), Harriet Walter (actress), Debbie Wiseman (composer), Gerard Horan (actor), Sue Johnston (actress), Tom Clegg (director), Tim Preece (actor), Janet Henfrey (actress), Nuala Alen-Buckley (miscellaneous crew), Tony Maudsley (actor),
Genres: ,Actors: Tim Brooke-Taylor (actor), Les Dennis (actor), Lionel Blair (actor), John Cater (actor), Kate O'Mara (actress), Linda Robson (actress), Neil McCaul (actor), Kathy Staff (actress), Stephen Butcher (director), Tony Adams (actor), Gary Webster (actor), Gilly Gilchrist (actor), Steve Matthews (producer), Ray Lonnen (actor), Freema Agyeman (actress),
Genres: Drama,Actors: Deanne Foley (director), Deanne Foley (writer), Lise Cormier (actress), Bill Forbes (actor), Michael Vernon (editor), Deb Allen (actress), Kenneth Harrington (actor), Constance Moerman (costume designer), Bronwen Kyffin (producer), Tara Doyle (actor),
Genres: Comedy, Short,Actors: Monique Parent (actress), Joe Estevez (actor), Joe Estevez (actor), David Heavener (actor), Paul Moncrief (actor), Guy Crawford (producer), Guy Crawford (director), Toni Zobel (producer), Darrin Ramage (producer), Sean J. Dillingham (actor), Wendy Crawford (actress), Yvette Hoffman (producer), Fred Meyers (actor), Yvette Hoffman (director), Steven D. White (editor),
Plot: In Taft, California, 1981, Johnny (Fred Meyers) is a unassuming baseball hopeful who turned against his stern and demanding father (Joe Estevez) and beat him to death with a baseball bat on a baseball diamond field. 17 years later, Johnny is released from the local insane asylum and begins a killing spree, with his father's ghost as an umpire.
Keywords: baseball, ghost, independent-film, psychopath, slasher, umpireActors: Ric Flair (actor), Joel Thingvall (miscellaneous crew), William Loose (composer), Edward Asner (actor), Dusty Rhodes (actor), Dory Funk Jr. (actor), Don Muraco (actor), Harold Sakata (actor), Nick Bockwinkel (actor), H.B. Haggerty (actor), Billy Graham (actor), William Allen Castleman (composer), Verne Gagne (producer), Dick Murdoch (actor), Ed McDaniel (actor),
Plot: Promoting the world of professional wrestling at the expense of the plot itself, Frank Bass (Ed Asner) takes a stand and defends what he thinks is right. Gamblers, mobsters, unscrupulous wrestlers, money-grubbing promoters, and fixers conspire to corrupt the industry, but Frank tries to make the game as honest and fair as it is his idealized vision. Frank's efforts climax as he promotes an over-the-hill champion in the final matches of his career.
Keywords: independent-film, pro-wrestling, wrestlingActors: Reed Hadley (actor), James Arness (actor), Stanley Andrews (actor), Wallace Ford (actor), Lane Bradford (actor), Paul E. Burns (actor), Erville Alderson (actor), Clancy Cooper (actor), James Craig (actor), Ray Bennett (actor), Harry Davenport (actor), King Donovan (actor), Eddie Dunn (actor), Jim Farley (actor), Lyle Latell (actor),
Plot: James Craig is torn between his criminal career as the masked bandit named the "El Paso Kid," and the life of a law-abiding citizen with his long-suffering wife Zoe (Bari). Throughout the film, he tells his worried wife "just one more time," but is unable to stop, angering Zoe greatly. However, he does have brief moments of heroics when eh helps the Widoe Weeks *Merkel) save her farm. This was Eagle-Lion Studios first "big budget" film.
Keywords: based-on-playActors: John Gilbert (actor), Edward Hearn (actor), Claire Anderson (actress), Lillian West (actress), E. Magnus Ingleton (writer), E. Magnus Ingleton (writer), Thomas N. Heffron (director), Harry Holden (actor), Ray Godfrey (actress), Grace Marvin (actress), Marie Van Tassell (actress), Bliss Chevalier (actress),
Genres: Comedy, Drama,Oooh...mmmm...
I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holdin' me
I wish I could say all the things
That I should say
Say 'em loud
Say 'em clear
For the whole wide world to hear
I wish I could share
All the love that's in my heart
Remove all the bars
That keep us apart
I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Then you'd see
And agree
That every man should be free
I wish I could give
All I'm longin' to give
I wish I could live
Like I'm longin' to live
I wish I could do
All the things that I can do
Oh, I'm way overdue
I'd be startin' anew
Oh, I wish I could be
Like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found I could fly
I'd soar to the sun
And (?) at the sea
And I'd sing
Cuz I know
And I'd sing
Cuz I'd know
I'd sing
Cuz I'd know
I know how it feels
To be free, yeah
(I wish I knew) To be
(how it feels) I know
(I wish I knew)
How it feels