Drums | 1945-1997

Tony Williams began studying drums with Alan Dawson in Boston at eleven, was playing professionally with Sam Rivers at thirteen, moved to New York when Jackie McLean hired him at sixteen, and joined Miles Davis at seventeen. Davis called him "the centre that the group's sound revolved around," and the Second Great Quintet recordings from 1964 to 1968, with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, document a drummer who had already decided that timekeeping was only one of several things a drum kit could do. He recorded two Blue Note albums as a leader during those years, "Life Time" (1964) and "Spring" (1965), while still a Davis sideman, and appeared on defining recordings by Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy, Herbie Hancock and Andrew Hill throughout the same period. In 1969 he formed the Tony Williams Lifetime with guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young, releasing the double album "Emergency!" (Polydor, 1969), a record that took the organ trio format and turned it into something confrontational and electric that nobody in jazz was prepared for. Davis was reportedly so impressed he asked to take over the band. Williams spent the 1970s working with Herbie Hancock's V.S.O.P. Quintet and the 1980s leading a succession of Blue Note ensembles. His final album, "Wilderness" (1997), featured Hancock, Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny and Stanley Clarke and was completed weeks before his death. Williams died on 23 February 1997 in Daly City, California, aged 51.