Billboard : 07/11/1960
Four Stars

Taylor‘s tasteful, smart piano solo work is nicely showcased in this package of nostalgic oldies and originals. Excellent backing is provided by Earl May on bass and Kenny Dennis on drums. A storng programming source for jazz jocks. Tunes include Whoopee, Poinciana, and a 25-year-old Benny Carter item, When Lights Are Low.

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Springfield Morning Union
Gerald M. Healy : 07/10/1960

Here are three “cats” who enjoy having musical fun. But the fun, for the most part, has been behind closed doors, or at out-of-the-way clubs. Well, they decided to get together and “cut” one of these real honest-to-goodness jazz “jam” sessions and they’ve come up with a swinger – One for Fun (Atlantic).

This Taylor fella is a wee bit all right, especially when he’s with May and Dennis. For this recording date they selected restful tunes like Summertume, One for Fun, That’s for Sure, both Taylor originals, A Little Southside Soul, Blue Moon, Makin’ Whoopee, Poinciana, At Long Last Love, and When Lights Are Low.

One for Fun is a smooth swinging LP, one we truthfully enjoy no matter now often we play it. There’s a feeling of relaxation generated by the trio which is conveyed to the listener. It’s easy to see the trio must have had fun recording One for Fun.

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Saturday Review
Wilder Hobson : 07/30/1960

Billy Taylor‘s clean and iridescent piano is heard in another program of originals and such worthy standards as Cole Porter‘s At Long Last Love and Benny Carter and Spencer Williams‘ When Lights Are Low (Atlantic 1329). Taylor is regarded in some sections of the jazz press as a slickster lacking in “funk” or “soul” but it is likely – if I may be permitted a bit of hyperbole – that these voices would entertain the same opinion of Mozart.

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Liner Notes by Billy Taylor

I’ve enjoyed playing jazz piano since I was a kid and it always gives me a great deal of pleasure when I can share this enjoyment with others. The communication and rapport established with a receptive audience gives every performing artist an added spark and usually brings forth the most exciting kind of performance; exciting for the performer as well as the audience. It is very difficult to achieve this kind of feeling on a record and the occasions when I have walked into a bare studio and done it have been rare. This is one of them and that is why we call the album One For Fun.

The fun began as soon as we arrived at the studio. I’ve known Tommy Nola for so many years that he is like a fourth member of the group. He plays a little piano himself, so he is extremely sensitive to every nuance when he records us. Equipped with a sense of humor matched only by Atlantic’s threat to Mort Sahl (Nesuhi Ertegun), Tommy is an invaluable aid to relaxation as well as a fine engineer. We joked about his piano playing and mike placement and began to warm up with tunes which we had already recorded.

After getting the instruments properly balanced, we began to record. It was just like playing a set or two in a comfortable club. From our regular repertoire we picked the tunes that we felt best projected the feeling we were after and from that point on it was “straight ahead” with time out for nothing but coffee and laughs.

When this particular trio was one month old, we went into Atlantic’s studio to begin this album, but because of out of town commitments we had to postpone the completion for six months. When we finally returned to New York, we decided to do everything over again because we were playing quite differently as a trio and felt that the album would be more unified if everything had the same feeling of immediacy.

When Lights Are Low is a tune written about 25 years ago by Benny Carter. It has a deceptively simple melody for 16 bars, then plunges without warning into a bridge which is more harmonic than melodic. As you will notice, I prefer the original bridge to the one commonly used by musicians who learned the tune from Miles Davis‘ record.

At Long Last Love is a Cole Porter tune that deserves much more attention than it gets. The melody practically plays itself and it seems to swing itself when played in 2/4 time.

Poinciana displays the solid walking bass of one of the best (and most underrated) bass men, Earl May. Listen to his work in the introduction and the ending. His choice of notes is unique in this age of bassists who sound like cellists.

Makin’ Whoopee is the only tune in this album that we have recorded before. This version retains a few of the Cuban-type rhythmic comments from the earlier version and adds a couple of two-bar remarks from drummer Kenny Dennis, who throughout the album is at his best.

Blue Moon, the old Rodgers and Hart evergreen, is another tune with a simple melody for 16 bars and a release which is more interesting to play than many jazz tunes of the period. We change the basic harmonics of the first 16 bars and pick up the tempo and once again just let Earl May lay down a firm foundation to build an improvisation on.

That’s For Sure is a tune of mine which was originally intended to be sung, but I found that if I left off the verse it made a nice tune to blow on.

A Little Southside Soul is our tribute to one of the most sincere and, from our point of view, most exciting audiences we have ever played for – the audience at the Sutherland Lounge. The Sutherland is a big barn of a room on the South Side of Chicago. The acoustics leave a lot to be desired and so does the piano you are expected to play. On top of this, the bandstand is in the middle of a huge circular bar. At best, you would not think that this would be a good room for a trio like mine, but the audience changes all that. They come in to have a ball, and they are such swingers that anyone who can’t swing for them can’t swing. They have been exposed to the very best in contemporary jazz and they react just as strongly to subtle sound as they do to hard-driving rhythmic interpretations. Indeed the composite jazz fan might well be found on Chicago’s South Side.

Summertime is perhaps the most popular melody to be taken from George Gershwin‘s Porgy And Bess score. It lends itself equally well to a moody treatment as to a swinging treatment. The harmonic structure is very close to the blues, and Earl May’s coda gives a deep bow to Mr. Gershwin’s original intent.

The title tune One For Fun could have been written for the club in which we are playing at this writing. It’s a new club here in New York called The Prelude and many of the things that I said about the audience at the Sutherland could be said about the audience here. The big difference, however, is in the clubs themselves. The Prelude is a “piano room.” The acoustics are excellent. The piano is brand new and kept in good tune. The p.a. equipment is the best, and the trio can be seen and heard perfectly anywhere in the room. With all this going for us we are playing for one of the most sensitive and aware audiences in the country and every set is “One For Fun.”