Tony Williams
Tony Williams
Tony Williams
Tony Williams
undisputed king of jazz drumming of the past fifty years. Though many
contemporary music.
commonly believed that he started playing the drums when his family
moved to Boston when he was eight years old, but he has been quoted
and allowed him to sit in with his band when he was still a child. This
drummers, and the ones that he modeled his playing after completely,
were Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Art Blakey, and a local Boston player,
versatility and big ears. These are the landmarks of his skills as a
then would go to friends houses that also played drums, and would
practice with them. At that point he had also become a student of Alan
Dawson, the famed teacher. Tony says that he only studied with
Dawson for a year, but it has been stated that he studied with him at
At the age of thirteen, Tony began playing with the great tenor
man Sam Rivers. Tony told stories that the group would go to the
Boston Museum of Art, and play pieces inspired by the artwork in the
continued playing with Sam Rivers, and in house bands around the
city, until he was discovered by Jackie McLean and moved to New York
months, and then joined the Miles Davis group, while at the age of 17.
group, and also as a sideman on the classic albums, Una Mas (Kenny
Dorham) and Out to Lunch (Eric Dolphy). His style of playing could be
until 1968.
After leaving Davis, he set out to create his own group, and did
so with the group Lifetime. Their first album, Emergency!, was a jazz-
rock masterpiece, and the album that inspired the Miles Davis album
Bitches Brew. When Miles heard the group Tony was playing with, he
immediately wanted to play with them. Tony didn’t want his group to
own. Miles went behind his back, however, and hired the group, Larry
time. Tony was furious, and swore to never play with Davis again.
Tony led numerous groups after the Lifetime group, most notable
of which was his group featuring Mulgrew Miller, Wallace Roney, and
Ira Coleman. This group allowed Tony to flex his muscle as a composer,
producing such music as Sister Cheryl, and the Suite of Neptune. This
group was primarily a hard bop outfit, a sort of modern day Jazz
Messengers, but the tunes Tony wrote for them had a more modern
bent to them. He broke up the group in 1996, and was doing more
work in a trio setting, and with the free-jazz/rock group Arcana. All of
his astounding work was cut short, however, when he was killed by a