A man sits at the piano and - across seven decades - the magic happens: Master imparts wisdom to student.
Jazz giant Billy Taylor, 87, is giving pointers to budding pianist Dont Ford, 17. Taylor spreads his famous left hand over a dozen keys and ripples off a chord.
“That looks like it hurts," says Steven Fox, 17, also a pianist.
Taylor, bandmate of Bird, Duke, Dizzy, and Miles, surprises them by saying, “Sure it does. But keep on doing it. I don't have a big hand. I just had to work at it."
Taylor is visiting the Girard Academic Music Program, a magnet secondary school at 22d and Ritner Streets, as part of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts' Education and Community Engagement Program. Students in grades nine to 12 get to learn from real pros close-up. Taylor, a natural teacher and the man who first called jazz “America's classical music," has come to teach, show, and, most of all, listen.
As the Girard program jazz septet performs his tunes “Gracias Chucho" and “Transformation," he nods to the beat, beams at the solos. Drummer Devon Waring, 17, makes him smile with an assured stroll, as do trumpeter Jawan Bennett and reed man Andrew Lawson, both 17.
In his comments, Taylor starts with praise: “Everything was very well played." He couches suggestions in encouragement: “What you want to work on now are the things you can do to say who you are, what you want to say." He counsels constant practice, openness to all kinds of music ("Jazz is a way of playing, but there is no one style"), having “a conversation with the band."
Jazz giant Billy Taylor, 87, is giving pointers to budding pianist Dont Ford, 17. Taylor spreads his famous left hand over a dozen keys and ripples off a chord.
“That looks like it hurts," says Steven Fox, 17, also a pianist.
Taylor, bandmate of Bird, Duke, Dizzy, and Miles, surprises them by saying, “Sure it does. But keep on doing it. I don't have a big hand. I just had to work at it."
Taylor is visiting the Girard Academic Music Program, a magnet secondary school at 22d and Ritner Streets, as part of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts' Education and Community Engagement Program. Students in grades nine to 12 get to learn from real pros close-up. Taylor, a natural teacher and the man who first called jazz “America's classical music," has come to teach, show, and, most of all, listen.
As the Girard program jazz septet performs his tunes “Gracias Chucho" and “Transformation," he nods to the beat, beams at the solos. Drummer Devon Waring, 17, makes him smile with an assured stroll, as do trumpeter Jawan Bennett and reed man Andrew Lawson, both 17.
In his comments, Taylor starts with praise: “Everything was very well played." He couches suggestions in encouragement: “What you want to work on now are the things you can do to say who you are, what you want to say." He counsels constant practice, openness to all kinds of music ("Jazz is a way of playing, but there is no one style"), having “a conversation with the band."
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