Tommy Williams was an American jazz
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
ist. He played with
Art Farmer
Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, double ...
,
Benny Golson
Benny Golson (born January 25, 1929) is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launch ...
,
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of ...
and others before he stopped playing in the 1960s. His last recording from that period was in 1965.
He returned to playing years later, but, according to Golson, "died before he could reestablish himself."
[Blumenthal, Bob (2004) In ''The Complete Argo/Mercury Art Farmer/Benny Golson/Jazztet Sessions'' ]D liner notes
D, or d, is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''.
History
The ...
p. 5. Mosaic. He played in
the Jazztet
The Jazztet was a jazz sextet, co-founded in 1959 by trumpeter Art Farmer and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, always featuring the founders along with a trombonist and a piano-bass-drums rhythm section. In its first phase, the Jazztet lasted until ...
, where, Golson reported, "I hated to follow
illiams'bass solos
..because he could put horn players to shame."
He also played alto saxophone, piano, and vibraphone, but, according to pianist Ronnie Matthews, "Bass is what everybody wanted him for because that was the thing that would make your hair stand on end when you heard him play it."
In February 1965 Williams played in the
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
orchestra for the soundtrack to the film ''
The Pawnbroker
''The Pawnbroker'' (1961) is a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant which tells the story of Sol Nazerman, a concentration camp survivor who suffers flashbacks of his past Nazi imprisonment as he tries to cope with his daily life operating a pawn sho ...
''.
Accounts of why he left music vary. Golson reported that Williams worked in a hardware store after his wife forced him to stop playing;
pianist Ronnie Matthews suggested that "he was the kind of person who for whatever reason could never deal with the bullshit business part of the music business.
..one morning when he was coming home from work with his bass, he got mugged. He just stopped playing and went to work for Sears Roebuck."
[Matthews, Paul B. (1995) "Ronnie Matthews". ''Cadence'', 21, p. 21.]
Williams latterly lived in Dean Street,
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York, with his wife, Audrey.
[Wilson, Michael (April 24, 2007]
"Seeking Landmark Status, and Hoping to Lose a Label of Unrest"
''The New York Times''.
Discography
As sideman
References
External links
Steve Wallace's blog posting on Williams
{{authority control
American jazz double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American male jazz musicians
The Jazztet members
Year of birth missing
Year of death missing