Tony Williams

• Genre: Post Bop
• Hometown: Chicago
• Tony Williams Website

About

Tony Williams was one of the great Post Bop drummers who delved deep into the rhythmic vocabulary established by Max Roach. At the age of seventeen, he was recruited to join Miles Davis' second quintet. That same year he began bandleading, recording two swirling, enigmatic Post Bop albums. At this time, Williams was developing a way to simultaneously swing and explore rhythm. He was constantly shifting the tempo and the meter; sometimes he would play rapid-fire polyrhythms on the snare while keeping the ride cymbal steady. In 1969 Williams formed Lifetime, an electric trio featuring guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young. The result was a musical atom bomb -- blistering electric Bebop with explosive walls of sound. Williams continued playing both acoustic and electric until his untimely death in 1997. He led an acoustic jazz group featuring acclaimed pianist Mulgrew Miller and played in Arcana, a ferocious avant-garde power trio.

- Noah Enelow