Holiday in a successful show called Holiday on Broadway. A year later, he became the house pianist at Birdland and performed with Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Taylor played at Birdland longer than any other pianist in the club's history. In 1949, Taylor published his first book, a textbook about bebop piano styles. Mid-career In 1952, Taylor composed one of his best known tunes, "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free", which achieved more popularity with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Nina Simone covered the song in her 1967 album Silk & Soul. The tune is known in the UK as a piano instrumental version, used for BBC Television's long-running Film... programme. He made dozens of recordings in the 1950s and 1960s, including Billy Taylor Trio with Candido with Cuban percussionist Candido Camero, My Fair Lady Loves Jazz, Cross Section and Taylor Made Jazz. In 1958, he became music director of NBC's The Subject Is Jazz, the first television series focusing on jazz. The 13-part series was produced by the new National Educational Television Network with guests such as Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Rushing, and Langston Hughes. Taylor also worked as a DJ and programme director on radio station WLIB in New York in the 1960s. During the 1960s, the Billy Taylor Trio was a regular feature of the Hickory House on West 55th Street in Manhattan. From 1969 to 1972, he served as music director for The David Frost Show and was the first African American to lead a talk-show band. Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich were just a few of the musicians who played on the show. In 1964, he established Jazzmobile in New York City as a way to promote jazz through educational programmes. In 1981, Jazzmobile produced a jazz special for National Public Radio, for which the programme received the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting Programs. Jazzmobile's 1990 Tribute Concert to Taylor at Avery Fisher Hall, part of the JVC Jazz Festival, featured Nancy Wilson, Ahmad Jamal Trio, and Terence Blanchard Quintet. Taylor hosted two long-running jazz programmes on National Public Radio. Jazz Alive! ran from 1977 to 1983, and Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center ran from 1995 to 2001. The former program won the Peabody Award. Later career In