Billy Taylor Hamilton College Interview Block 19 (Q10766)

Not only did it make us play together, what happened is that the Duke Ellingtons, the Count Basies and the every strata of the music was available because they had nowhere else to go. We were all pressed into the Black community. So everyone was accessible. I mean a man of Duke Ellington's stature, a man of Count Basie's stature, today would live, perhaps, in an area that I as a young musician ...