Tony Williams

i listened to that same cd over again in aw of how good the playing is, lol, how fast is the freakin swing 350? how they go from the slow classy stuff to the fast madness is intense.
 
Anyone ever see the open handed hihat thing he does. Basically he plays the hihat in an open handed position, and then he move the stick up and down, and hits both sides of the hats int he process. It's really cool.

- Marc
 
Just bought 'Seven Steps To Heaven' where he only drums on a few tracks, but he's on the title song and I just can't get enough of it. its so damn catchy and has such a great solo. you can always tell when tony's playing......
 
foursticks said:
Just bought 'Seven Steps To Heaven' where he only drums on a few tracks, but he's on the title song and I just can't get enough of it. its so damn catchy and has such a great solo. you can always tell when tony's playing......

Yes some very mature drumming for a young Tony Williams, if memory serves me correct he was only 17 when he recorded this.. some beautiful phrasing.

here is the solo
 

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someone needs to post a buch of sound clips like that guy over in the Steve Gadd thread did!
 
darkcherryfade said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc4Ev2jCS5w&search=Tony Williams




When it comes right down to it, this is what drumming is all about to me.
Crappy sound aside, this is AWESOME DRUMMING. God, Tony rules.
I have a new appreciation for Tony Williams. I transcribed the solo from Mr. Spock off of "Believe It" and it's a mother. There's two killer hard flam licks in there. One is flam accents between the high tom and snare in 16ths at 160 bpm. The other one is swiss triplets between the toms which isn't as hard but sounds so cool. There's also a hard BD pattern under a snare drum accented line. That's kicking my butt. I think the hardest are those damned flam accents though... It's impossible to hold for me over 150 bpm. Lucky it's only for one bar, I can pull it off sometimes. Man, Tony rules.
 
theduke86 said:
Crappy sound aside, this is AWESOME DRUMMING. God, Tony rules.
I have a new appreciation for Tony Williams. I transcribed the solo from Mr. Spock off of "Believe It" and it's a mother. There's two killer hard flam licks in there. One is flam accents between the high tom and snare in 16ths at 160 bpm. The other one is swiss triplets between the toms which isn't as hard but sounds so cool. There's also a hard BD pattern under a snare drum accented line. That's kicking my butt. I think the hardest are those damned flam accents though... It's impossible to hold for me over 150 bpm. Lucky it's only for one bar, I can pull it off sometimes. Man, Tony rules.


Y'know, somehow I've never really ended up practicing flams, and I was thinking yesterday about whether or not to start incorporating them, and hearing Tony use them finally convinced me I should.
 
Another great albulm with Tony Williams that many people havent heard is one he made with Eric Dolphy called Out to Lunch.
 
bigbeatbenny said:
Another great albulm with Tony Williams that many people havent heard is one he made with Eric Dolphy called Out to Lunch.
I agree. Out to Lunch is a great album. Tony Williams compliments Bobby Hutcherson's vibes so well. And Freddie Hubbard was so creative when he was playing in the avant garde style as a kind of outside member of the Coltrane-Dolphy music family.
 
Man Dude was the King of flams....I've just started really checkin out his stuff and the power and speed is incredible...especially that signature ride....

Funny thing is when I see Steve Smith play I now realize those licks he uses are alot of hybrid-type Tony Willams chops...
 
All of Tony's Blue note stuff in the 60's is great. The 70's stuff has great drumming, though i didn't get into the music as much. Personally, when "Foreign Intrigue" came out I was impacted in a huge way. I love all of his solo stuff in the 80's and 90's the best ( I wish that they were still in print. I can't believe that they aren't. I'm always checking Ebay.) and a close second is anthing with him and Ron Carter and Herbie H.
It such a big inspiration for a drummer to writing so many originals put them out with a great band and so much success as he had. He really took his music to new levels and pushed himself further each time. He also raised up some young great players in his band (aka Art Blakley).
I feel blessed to have heard him live!! I had him sign some albums at that time, but I don't have them anymore. DOH! Well, I'm not really into autographs myself.
 
Tony Williams is amazing! Honestly I don't know of a better jazz drummer. "Red Alert" is defintely my favorite song of tony williams drumming. it just sounds........so damn cool.
 
rendezvous_drummer said:
Tony Williams is amazing! Honestly I don't know of a better jazz drummer. "Red Alert" is defintely my favorite song of tony williams drumming. it just sounds........so damn cool.
Is Red Alert off of the Angel Street??
I don't have the LP anymore, and I don't think its in print on CD. I'm going to keep checking EBay.
 
Bobhead said:
Is Red Alert off of the Angel Street??
I don't have the LP anymore, and I don't think its in print on CD. I'm going to keep checking EBay.

Was just listening to the 'Angel Street" cd the other day. It's out of print?!!! Can't believe it! I was fortunate to see that lineup of Tony's quintet live a couple of times. Fantastic band. I truly feel blessed. Mulgrew, Bill and Wallace just blast through the fog! I was always impressed by the way Tony approached his late compositions. Think about it. Here's a guy who had honestly earned his reputation as one of the greatest (if not maybe THE greatest) drummers in history, but was himself disatisfied with his lack of understanding as regards musical theory and academic training in composition. So what does he do? He goes back to school and works hard. Forgot who his composition professor was, but it was a person of note and great reputation. The results were 'Angel Street', "Native Heart' (my favorite), 'Wilderness' et al. A stunning career, indeed.

It's often said that people remember where they were, and what they were doing, when they hear the news of some momentous event (like Kennedy being killed, or more recently, 911). I remember hearing of Tony's untimely death on a late afternoon broadcast on NPR. I just couldn't believe it. I still can't.
 
theduke86 said:
Red Alert is on the Lifetime album "Believe It".
Which, coincidentally, is one of my favorite albums of all time. Can't say the same for Million Dollar Legs.

Agree completely, Duke. The song, "Fred" is from another planet. Some of A. Holdsworth's best work. As for MDL, yeah - please, Tony.....no disco - and especially, no singing!!
 
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