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Dec 14, 2023 · Tony turned the jazz drumming world upside down. He was a huge influence on me, and the early stuff he did with Miles still sounds modern, fresh, and thoughtful.” Or as Miles Davis said about Tony Williams in his 1989 autobiography: “There ain’t but one Tony Williams when it comes to playing the drums. There was nobody like him before or ...
Mar 15, 2022 · Tony Williams. Born Anthony Tillmon Williams in Chicago in 1945 and raised in Boston, Tony Williams is regarded as one of the most important, inventive, and influential jazz drummers since the 1960s. Regarded as a pioneer of jazz fusion, he launched his career with trumpeter Miles Davis, who was quoted as saying, “A drummer like Tony comes ...
- Tony Williams The Drum Prodigy: Early Years in Boston
- Williams Moves to New York
- Miles Davis: The ’64 Concert and The Second Great Quintet
- Other 1960s Albums: Sideman and Bandleader
- Fusion and Jazz Rock
- The New Tony Williams Lifetime
- V.S.O.P and Williams’ Return to Straight Ahead Jazz
- Trio of Doom
- High Profile Rock and Pop Collaborations
- Tony Williams: A Mentor to The Next Generation
Anthony Tillmon Williams was born on 12 December 1945 in Chicago, but grew up in Boston, where he showed promise in his drum lessons with Alan Dawson from an early age. Dawson played with the likes of Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Lee Konitzand countless others, and would go on to become a legendary teacher at Berklee College of Music, where a numbe...
Aged 16, Williams was hired by Jackie McLean, and in 1962, having just turned 17, he moved to New York, the undisputed epicentre of jazz. With the alto saxophonist he recorded Vertigo and One Step Beyond. Another early recording, also on Blue Note Records, was Kenny Dorham’s brilliant latin-tinged hard bop of Una Mas, from 1963. Trombonist Grachan ...
Tony Williams was still 17 when Miles Davisheard him playing with McLean. The trumpeter was instantly impressed: “Man, just hearing that little motherfucker made me excited all over again. Trumpet players love to play with great drummersand I could definitely hear right away that this was going to be one of the baddest motherfuckers who had ever pl...
Williams continued to play freelance record dates throughout the 1960s, and many of the resulting albums are now considered classics. In 1964 alone he appeared on Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure and his old Boston mentor Sam Rivers’ Fuchsia Swing Song: all three are important documents of the ‘60s Avant garde movement. ...
In 1969 Williams appeared on Miles Davis’ seminal In a Silent Way, as major jazz musicians began to experiment with electric instrumentation. That same year the drummer, with his new band Lifetime, took what on paper appears to be a standard soul jazz organ trio, but instead created a pioneering fusion workthat was heavily influenced by the new sou...
In 1975 Williams returned with The New Tony Williams Lifetime, which now featured British guitarist Alan Holdsworth, Alan Pasqua on keyboards and Tony Newton on bass. Holdsworth had played with prog rock bands like Soft Machine, while Pasqua and Newton were veteran session musicians. Now signed to Columbia Records, they released Believe It to posit...
1976 saw the formation V.S.O.P, a band which was essentially a reunion of the 1960s Miles Davis Quintet, but with Freddie Hubbard in the trumpet chair instead of Davis, who was in the midst of a hiatus from playing at the time. This marked something of a return to straight ahead acoustic jazz for Williams, as the quintet played classic ‘60s materia...
For the 1979 Havana Jam Festival in Cuba, Columbia Records brought together a fusion super group. With Williams and guitarist John McLaughlin joined by electric bass legend Jaco Pastorius, the Trio of Doom was born. Ernesto Juan Castellano’s documentary film Havana Jam ’79 captures the band’s sole live performance. The trio took to a studio shortly...
In 1985 Williams made an unlikely appearance on Album by the rock group Public Image Ltd, which was led by John Lydon, who is best known as lead vocalist for punk band the Sex Pistols. Williams shared the drum chair with legendary British rocker Ginger Baker, of progressive rock outfit Cream. Further high profile session work came the same year as ...
Williams returned to Blue Note in the mid-1980s, leading his own quintet, featuring talented up-and-coming musicians like pianist Mulgrew Miller and trumpeter Wallace Roney. He focused on recording his own compositions: he had long wanted to receive the same kind of recognition for his writing and all-round musicianship that he had for his technica...
BY ANDY DOERSCHUK. Editor’s Note: The drumming world was shocked when Tony Williams suddenly passed away in his hospital bed on February 23, 1997. He was only 52 years old and appeared to have been in good health, with decades of creative expression ahead of him. We rushed the following cover story together at the last moment, pulling ...
Aug 18, 2011 · Tony Williams: <br>The Game Changer. One of the most influential, inspiring, and spontaneous forces in jazz, Tony Williams remains a classic example of artistry transcending technical analysis. In the October 2011 issue of Modern Drummer magazine, writer Jeff Potter explains Tony’s genius and influence, while in the following MD Online ...
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Tony Williams. (Photo: DownBeat Archives) Tony Williams erupted onto the jazz scene in 1963 as a 17-year-old prodigy with a full-blown, volcanic style of drumming that would blow hard-bop tastiness out the door. Williams’ arrival was hailed with a great deal of fanfare. The week he came with Miles Davis to San Francisco’s Jazz Workshop, the ...
Anthony Tillmon Williams (December 12, 1945 – February 23, 1997) [1] was an American jazz drummer . Williams first gained fame as a member of Miles Davis ' " Second Great Quintet ," and later pioneered jazz fusion with Davis' group and his own combo, the Tony Williams Lifetime. [2] In 1970, music critic Robert Christgau described him as ...
