Dr. Billy Taylor, who left us at the age of 87 in December 2010, opened the doors of Jazz for generations. As a pianist he played with the best in the business from 1942 (Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker et al) through 2010. But his contributions to jazz went far beyond the bandstand. Behind a radio microphone (for four decades), in front of a television camera, in the university setting and in the streets on Jazzmobile's flatbed trucks, Taylor was an evangelist and swinging practitioner of "America's classical music" In a 2007 Jazz at Lincoln Center conversation with Lewis Porter, he remembers the very surprising way he wound up in Ben Webster's band.