Jazz Articles about Claude Williams

Claude Williams: Swinging The Blues

by Mark Corroto
February 1, 2000

Author Michael Ondaatje wrote Coming Through Slaughter, a fictional account of the real New Orleans barber and perhaps the first jazz musician, Buddy Bolden. Bolden’s myth and infamy comes from the fact he was never recorded. Thus, his life makes for great story telling and his sound for much exaggeration. For violinist Claude “Fiddler” Williams, recording in his ninth decade on this planet, his sound is a living archive of jazz history. Williams was born in 1908 in Oklahoma and ...