Posted on September 25, 2001 at 3:25 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Frederick J. Taylor, Ph.D., has joined the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Music as a visiting professor in music management.
Taylor is a nationally recognized scholar in the design of two- and four-year academic programs in music business. He has designed and implemented numerous music business programs at colleges and universities in the United States and abroad.
Taylor received his undergraduate degree in music from Kentucky State University and his master’s degree in music from the University of Illinois. Taylor earned his doctorate in music from Temple University and did graduate work in business administration at West Chester University.
University positions Taylor has held include chairman of the department of music at Cheyney State University of Pennsylvania as well as chairman of the music industry program, assistant director of the school of music and coordinator of music management at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Taylor was formerly a teacher in the public schools in Chicago and Philadelphia.
In the music industry, Taylor worked as a session musician and arranger at record labels in Chicago and Philadelphia during the 1960s and 70s. Taylor performs occasionally as a jazz and popular pianist and composes music for television commercials. He and his son are joint owners of Tomorrow Pictures, Inc., which provides a variety of services for visual communications needs, including corporate image, training, sales, commercials, infomercials, electronic press kits, internal promotional pieces, music videos and independent film production.
Taylor has published scholarly reports on assessing music industry programs, evaluative standards in music industry programs and the economic impact of the music industry in metropolitan Atlanta and in Georgia. His most recent article, “Atlanta: The Olympic Music City of Dreams,” was published in the Journal of the Music Entertainment Industry Education Association and in the magazine Georgia Trends.
Taylor is also the co-author of a textbook, Marketing in the Music Industry, published by Pearsons/Simon and Schuster and is preparing a second book, Entrepreneurship in the Music Business.
Taylor is president of the National Association for the Study and Performance of African American Music (NASPAAM). He serves on several boards, including the Music Entertainment Industry Educators Association, Rehabilitation Exposure, Inc., and the National Association for Music Education (MENC) Hall of Fame Committee. He was appointed by former Georgia Governor Zell Miller to the Senate Music Industry Committee and Friends of Georgia, Inc.
The focus of Taylor’s research in African-American music is the elements of African culture that were retained, altered and adapted to new world conditions and that subsequently generated new African-American musical forms such as blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and gospel.