“There ain’t but one Tony Williams when it comes to playing the drums,” jazz legend Miles Davis famously said in his autobiography. “There was nobody like him before or since.” Williams was a prodigy, coming to prominence with Davis at the
age of seventeen. Miles hired Williams after hearing him play around Boston with saxophonists Sam Rivers and Jackie McLean. The drummer’s approach to the instrument combined visceral expression with virtuosic technique. The momentum of his 8th notes propelled the music in previously unheard ways, and his almost straight but intensely swinging ride playing inspired generations of drummers that followed, including the jazz and funk drumming great Mike Clark, who was featured in the December 2018 issue of Modern Drummer. Clark spoke extensively about Williams’ drum sound in an interview with the Snapshots Music and Arts Foundation. (Search “Mike Clark: Tony Williams Interview.”) Williams’ playing with Miles Davis on recordings such […]