Tony Williams

1945-1997

Jazz drummer, bandleader, composer

An endlessly inventive drummer, bandleader, and composer, Tony Williams was a major force behind the expansion of jazz from its acoustic origins to the vast new territory of electronic "jazz fusion." In 1963, while still a teenager, Williams joined the single most influential group in jazz history: the Miles Davis Quintet. After leaving Davis at the end of 1968, Williams went on to form his own groups and to pursue his own experiments in sound, often incorporating the rhythms and textures of rock music. Fusion, as these experiments came to be called, was an attempt to unite, or fuse, traditional jazz with other musical styles. The fusion movement would dominate jazz for the rest of the century, and Davis and Williams were its founders.

Born Anthony Williams in Chicago on December 12, 1945, Williams moved with his parents to Boston at the age of two. His father, the saxophonist Tillmon Williams, often brought him along when playing the jazz clubs in and around the city. It was while sitting in the audience of these clubs that Williams first felt an irresistible pull toward the drums. As he told an interviewer, Down Beat magazine's John Ephland, many years later, "I would … just watch the drummer. And I'd look at the drummer doin' what he did, and I remember the feeling I had, which was, ‘If he can do that, I know I can do that.’" Soon Williams had convinced his father and his father's bandmates to let him take over the drums for a few minutes per night. These were his first public performances. He was nine years old. Two years later he was playing in clubs without his father.

Neither his father nor his mother was entirely comfortable with the idea that their young son, then known still as Anthony, was headed toward a career in music. Both wanted him to spend more time on schoolwork. But when the saxophonist Jackie McLean offered Williams, then age sixteen, a chance to play in New York City, the center of the jazz world, Williams's mother gave her blessing. As Williams recalled to Down Beat's Ephland, "When [McLean] asked me, I said, ‘Yeah sure, I'd love to, but you'll have to ask my mom.’ He came over, and said he would look out for me…. I lived in his house in New York for a couple of months…. My mom's involvement and Jackie's kindness to my family really helped."

Williams's formal schooling ended early. With regard to music, however, he eagerly sought out teachers from a wide variety of musical traditions. These included teachers affiliated with two of the best music schools in the country, Berklee in Boston and Juilliard in New York City. His desire to learn and improve never weakened. Nearly two decades after he first erupted onto the New York jazz scene, for example, he was studying classical composition at the University of California, Berkeley. It is clear, however, that his most influential teachers were the musicians with whom he played, particularly McLean, a multitalented saxophonist named Sam Rivers, and Davis.

Williams first encountered Davis at a club in Boston around 1960. It is a measure of the teenage drummer's self-confidence that he pursued the much older and notoriously short-tempered bandleader backstage to ask if he could sit in with the quintet. Davis told him to go back to the audience and listen. Williams's reputation was growing, however, and the two met again several years later at a club in New York City. This time Davis was the one in the audience, and Williams was on stage with McLean's band. Less than two months later Williams, then seventeen years old, joined the Davis quintet. The lineup thus formed—Davis on trumpet, Williams on drums, Ron Carter on bass, Herbie Hancock on piano, and Wayne Shorter on saxophone—is familiar to every jazz fan. Before Williams left the group in the winter of 1968-69, he had contributed to more than eight highly successful and influential albums, including My Funny Valentine (1964), Miles Smiles (1966), Nefertiti (1967), and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968).

Eager to pursue his own vision of a fusion of jazz and popular music, Williams formed his own ensemble, the Tony Williams Lifetime, with Larry Young on organ and John McLaughlin on guitar. Heavily influenced by the pounding rhythms and electric guitars of rock music, Lifetime's albums are recognized today as major milestones. At the time, however, they were commercial failures. While Williams's technique on the drums was recognized by critics as almost always superb, the sounds he produced often intimidated even serious jazz fans. Lifetime's music was loud, even harsh, and it demanded repeated listens and careful concentration. "This is not the kind of music you listen to while playing bridge," a review of the 1970 album Turn It Over noted in downbeat.com. Williams expected the patience and full attention of fans. When these were not forthcoming, the frustration was hard to bear, and he left the world of professional jazz for several years. By the mid-1970s, however, the situation had improved dramatically, particularly after Williams joined a new group, VSOP, which emerged to critical acclaim in 1976. With Williams, Hancock, Carter, and, at times, Shorter and Freddie Hubbard, VSOP was essentially a reunion of the Davis quintet. The group toured frequently and recorded several major albums, all highly regarded, as were those Williams created as part of the Great Jazz Trio, with Carter and the pianist Hank Jones, about the same time.

While his work with VSOP and the Great Jazz Trio suggested that Williams was returning to his roots in traditional jazz, he did so always with a fresh perspective. It was at precisely this period, for example, that he began studying classical music, particularly classical composition, in earnest. That training is evident in his contributions to Hancock's Oscar-winning soundtrack for the 1986 film Round Midnight. In 1994 he reunited once again with Carter, Hancock, and Shorter to record, with trumpeter Wallace Roney, A Tribute to Miles, which won a Grammy award as the year's best jazz instrumental performance. His last album, Wilderness, again drew on the patterns and rhythms of classical music. From acoustic jazz to electronic fusion, back to acoustic jazz, and on to classical music, Tony Williams never stopped learning or experimenting in his quest for new sounds and new experiences. He died of a sudden heart attack near his home in California on February 23, 1997, at the age of fifty-one.

At a Glance …

Born Anthony Williams on December 12, 1945, in Chicago, IL; died February 23, 1997, in Daly City, CA; son of Tillmon Williams (a saxophonist) and Alyse Janez; married; wife's name, Colleen. Education: Studied with teachers affiliated with Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA, Juilliard School of Music, New York, NY, and University of California, Berkeley.

Career: Miles Davis Quintet, drummer, 1963-68; performed with the Tony Williams Lifetime, 1969-72(?), VSOP, 1976-77(?), and the Great Jazz Trio, late 1970s; contributed to Herbie Hancock's Oscar-winning soundtrack for the film Round Midnight, 1986; performed extensively as a soloist, and performed and recorded with such renowned instrumentalists as Sonny Rollins, Chet Baker, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, Art Blakey, and Carlos Santana.

Awards: Grammy Award (with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Wallace Roney), best jazz instrumental, 1994, for A Tribute to Miles; elected to Down Beat magazine's Hall of Fame, 1997.

Selected discography

Albums, solo/bandleader

Life Time, Blue Note, 1964.

Spring, Blue Note, 1965.

The Joy of Flying, Columbia, 1979.

Native Heart, Capitol, 1990.

Wilderness, Ark 21, 1996.

Albums with Miles Davis Quintet

Seven Steps to Heaven, Columbia, 1963.

My Funny Valentine, Columbia, 1964.

Live at the Plugged Nickel, Columbia, 1965.

Miles Smiles, Columbia, 1966.

E.S.P., Columbia, 1967.

Sorcerer, Columbia, 1967.

Nefertiti, Columbia, 1967.

Filles de Kilimanjaro, Columbia, 1968.

Albums with Tony Williams Lifetime

Emergency!, Polydor, 1969.

Turn It Over, Polydor, 1970.

Ego, Polydor, 1971.

Albums with VSOP

Quintet, Columbia, 1977.

Third Plane, Milestone, 1977.

Album with Great Jazz Trio

New Wine in Old Bottles, Inner City, 1978.

Album with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Wallace Roney

A Tribute to Miles, Qwest/Wea, 1994.

Sources

Periodicals

Down Beat, May 1, 1989.

Independent (London), February 26, 1997.

New York Times, February 26, 1997.

Online

"Tony Williams," All About Jazz,http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id_11412 (accessed February 19, 2008).

"Tony Williams: Turn It Over," Down Beat, http://downbeat.com/default.asp?sect_reviews&subsect_review_detail&rid_84 (accessed February 19, 2008).

—R. Anthony Kugler