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BiographyWilliams was born in Chicago and grew up in Boston.
He was of African, Portuguese, and Chinese descent.
He studied with drummer Alan Dawson at an early age, and began playing professionally at the age of 13 with saxophonist Sam Rivers.
Saxophonist Jackie McLean hired Williams when he was 16.
At 17 Williams found considerable fame with Miles Davis, joining a group that was later dubbed Davis's Second Great Quintet.
Williams was a vital element of the group, called by Davis in his autobiography "the center that the group's sound revolved around." His inventive playing helped redefine the role of jazz rhythm section through the use of polyrhythms and metric modulation, transitioning between mathematically related tempos and/or time signatures.Williams was an integral participant in the early- to mid-1960s avant-garde movement, playing on such classics as Jackie McLean's One Step Beyond, Grachan Moncur III's Evolution and Some Other Stuff, Sam Rivers's Fuchsia Swing Song, Andrew Hill's Point of Departure, and Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch.
His first album as a leader, 1964's Life Time, was also in the avant-garde vein.In 1969, he formed a trio, the Tony Williams Lifetime, with John McLaughlin on guitar and Larry Young on organ.
Lifetime was a pioneering band of the fusion movement, a combination of rock, R&B, and jazz.
Their first album, Emergency!, was largely rejected by the jazz community at the time of its release.
His second fusion recording, also on Polydor Records, was Turn It Over, was even more progressive and louder, with the addition of rock bassist and singer Jack Bruce.After McLaughlin and Bruce's departure, and several more albums, Lifetime disbanded.
In 1975, Williams put together a band he called "The New Tony Williams Lifetime", featuring bassist Tony Newton, pianist Alan Pasqua, and English guitarist Allan Holdsworth, which recorded two albums for Columbia Records, Believe It and Million Dollar Legs.In mid-1976, Williams was a part of a reunion with his colleagues from the Miles Davis band: keyboardist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter.
Davis was in the midst of a six-year hiatus and was "replaced" by Freddie Hubbard.
The record was later released as V.S.O.P and was highly instrumental in increasing the popularity of acoustic jazz.
The group went on to tour and record for several years, releasing a series of live albums under the name "V.S.O.P." or "V.S.O.P.: The Quintet".In 1979, Williams, McLaughlin and bassist Jaco Pastorius united for a one-time performance at the Havana Jazz Festival.
This trio came to be known as the Trio of Doom, and a recording of their performance was released in 2007.
It opens with a powerful drum improvisation by Williams, followed by McLaughlin's "Dark Prince" and Pastorius' "Continuum", Williams' original composition "Para Oriente" and McLaughlin's "Are You the One?"With the group Fuse One, Williams released two albums in 1980 and 1982.
In 1985, he recorded an album for Blue Note Records entitled Foreign Intrigue, which featured the playing of pianist Mulgrew Miller and trumpeter Wallace Roney.
Later that year he formed a quintet with Miller, Roney, saxophonist Bill Pierce, and bassist Charnett Moffett (later Ira Coleman).
This band played Williams' compositions almost exclusively (the Lennon–McCartney song "Blackbird", the standard "Poinciana", and the Freddie Hubbard blues "Birdlike" being the exceptions) and toured and recorded throughout the remainder of the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
This rhythm section also recorded as a trio.Williams also played drums for the band Public Image Limited, fronted by former Sex Pistols singer John Lydon, on their 1986 release Album/Cassette/Compact Disc (the album title varied depending on the format).
He played on the songs "FFF", "Rise" (a modest hit), and "Home".
Bass guitarist Bill Laswell co-wrote those three songs with Lydon.
The other drummer on that album was Ginger Baker.Williams lived and taught in the San Francisco Bay Area until his death from a heart attack following routine gall bladder surgery.
One of his final recordings was The Last Wave by the trio known as Arcana, a release organized by Laswell.EquipmentWilliams primarily used Gretsch drums, Zildjian cymbals and Remo CS black dot drumheads on the tops and bottoms of his toms, and the top head of his snare, but later switched to coated heads.
He also held the distinction of being the first Zildjian artist to have a signature drumstick made for him by the company in 1991 as part of their Artist Series drumsticks and it is still in production to this day as of 2014.
Williams endorsed Drum Workshop drums toward the end of his life.In his younger days, Williams also used other manufacturers' drums during tours, depending on what was provided.
He played a Premier drumset at Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1967 when he played with Miles Davis, and Paiste cymbals at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1972 when he played with Stan Getz.TechniqueFor straight-ahead jazz, Williams primarily played traditional grip.
With his more powerful fusion drumming, however, he used matched grip for playing his signature precision single-stroke roll style.