If the great pianist/composer/educator Dr. Billy Taylor had only one of those “angles” to lean on, he’d still be a “hall of fame” level force in jazz, and the sum of the three (and the fascinating ways they’re interwoven) make him an extraordinary figure in the music’s history, something that itself belies the delightfully positive energy that radiated through any space he entered. He championed jazz on network television, he was a committed educator and wrote a book on the history of jazz piano that hasn’t aged, and he generally worked to help the music reach wider audiences without diluting any of the substance. His determination to help jazz earn the respect it deserves is consistent with this being the guy who wrote “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” (perhaps best known via Nina Simone’s interpretation), just one of his many noteworthy compositions. And yet when I was first exposed to his music I literally didn’t know any of this, I just knew he was charming and played the bejeezus out of the piano.