Jaki Byard: Anything for Jazz

Back in the early 1980s, I'd head down to Barry Harris's Jazz Cultural Theater on New York's Eighth Avenue in the 20s to hear Jaki Byard & the Apollo Stompers. As I recall, you never knew who you'd see in the band. There often were guys in the trumpet section who played Broadway shows. But the biggest surprise of all was hearing Byard play the piano. Th…