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Claude Williams
Claude Williams: Swinging The Blues
by Mark Corroto
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 ...
read moreClaude Williamson 1926-2016
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Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Claude Williamson, a piano mainstay of jazz in California for seven decades, died on July 16 in Los Angeles. He had been in decline since he fell in his home in 2015 and broke a hip. After Williamson moved from Boston to L.A. in 1947, he played with Charlie Barnet’s band for two years and was the featured soloist on the widely popular recording “Claude Reigns.” Barnet named the piece after him. Williamson’s harmonic sophistication and responsive timing made him ...
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Claude Williamson (1926-2016)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Claude Williamson, a West Coast jazz pianist who was deeply influenced by the bebop piano of Bud Powell and was perhaps the last surviving member of the Lighthouse All Stars, often unleashing centipede-like speed on the keyboard along with sinewy improvisational lines, died July 16. He was 89. His son, Marc, said last night that his father never fully recovered from a bad fall in February 2015 and had been in hospice care for about a year. Like many jazz ...
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Claude Williamson: Kenton Presents
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In the very early 1950s, Los Angeles was awash in jazz pianists who could play with ferocious speed and delicate grace. The names that spring to mind include Russ Freeman, Marty Paich, Hampton Hawes, Dodo Marmarosa, Carl Perkins, Pete Jolly, Lorraine Geller, Victor Feldman, Sonny Clark and Jimmy Rowles. But perhaps the most overlooked member of this silky-swinger set is Claude Williamson. Back in 1954 and '55, Williams recorded two perfect trio albums for Capitol when Stan Kenton briefly headed ...
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