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ENCORE
Steve Williams
by Marcia Hillman
There are drummers
who are timekeepers
and then there are
drummers who go
beyond and play the
melody on their drums
as well as keeping the
beat going. Steve Williams belongs to the latter class.
Born in 1956, Williams grew up in Washington, DC
and started playing drums at about 8 or 9 years of age.
Williams recalls, “My father played all kinds of music
around the house. For some reason, the drum was the
first instrument that made my ears perk up. And when
my father played Philly Joe Jones,” he continues, “I
realized that drums could play both melody and
rhythm.” After high school, Williams went on to the
University of Miami and continued his music education
in the jazz department there, working locally at nights
with fellow schoolmates Carmen and Curtis Lundy
and Bobby Watson. It was while he was in Miami that
he joined Monty Alexander’s band and started to
travel internationally. After the Lundys moved to New
York in 1978, Williams decided to try his luck in the Big
Apple. In New York he studied with drummer Billy
Hart and performed with such artists as Clifford
Jordan, Tex Allen and Charles Davis. After some time,
Williams returned to Washington to continue building
his reputation the old fashioned way - on the job. At
that time he played a lot with visiting musicians that
he had met in New York, including Milt Jackson,
Freddie Hubbard, Joe Williams, Eddie Henderson,
Larry Willis, Mulgrew Miller and John Hicks.
And then in 1980, the next step in Williams’
musical education began – one that lasted for the next
25 years of his life. Shirley Horn was looking for a
drummer to replace Hart in her trio and came to hear
Williams play on a gig. “I think she liked me because
she felt she could work with me and teach me what I
needed to know to work with her,” he comments.
LEST WE FORGET
Revolutionary Ensemble
by Andrey Henkin
Unlike “Hardest Working Man in Show Business”
James Brown, “Greatest Show on Earth” Ringling Bros.
and Barnum & Bailey Circus or other self-adhered
honorifics, Revolutionary Ensemble, the trio of
violinist Leroy Jenkins, bassist Sirone (né Norris Jones)
and drummer/keyboardist Jerome Cooper, deserved
their name. Expertly knitting together the disparate
threads of avant garde jazz, Third Stream and primal
blues, the group would spearhead the genre known as
“Chamber Jazz” (wherein strings took the role
traditionally held by brass and/or reed instruments in
small groups) and inspire entire swathes of modern
American and European jazz.
Jenkins and Cooper were both from Chicago while
Sirone was born in Atlanta. The former two spent time
in Europe during the late ‘60s, participating in sessions
with other American expatriates like Anthony Braxton,
Alan Silva and Archie Shepp while Sirone was busy
with Gato Barbieri, Marion Brown and Dave Burrell.
Jenkins, Sirone and original (and short-tenured)
drummer Frank Clayton came together in New York
City as Revolutionary Ensemble in 1971, an odd period
in jazz history, where (not-so) New Thing, fusion and
soul jazz eyed each other’s scenes warily. Cooper came
10 May 2013 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD
Pierre Sprey, owner of Mapleshade Records remembers
the night: “It was at a club called One Step Down in
Washington, DC. I knew Shirley well and she asked me
to come and listen to this drummer... Steve is a very
creative drummer and I thought he could be perfect
with Shirley.” This meeting also marked the beginning
of a strong friendship and association between Sprey
and Williams. “Over the years, Steve has become a sort
of resident drummer at Mapleshade Records, appearing
as sideman on a number of albums and working with
Larry Willis.” Williams can be heard on Kendra Shank’s
first CD for Mapleshade, Afterglow, co-produced by
Horn. Shank says, “I was thrilled to have Steve on the
date... I was doing a lot of slow ballads, which Steve
plays so masterfully.”
Horn was able to keep the same personnel together
in a working trio (with bassist Charles Ables) for the
next quarter-century, which afforded Williams steady
work and the opportunity to play on bandstands all
over the world. This also gave Williams the chance to
play and/or record with Miles Davis, Toots Thielemans,
Ron Carter, Branford and Wynton Marsalis and Carmen
McRae. One of Williams’ fondest memories is of
playing on McRae’s last recording (Sarah: Dedicated To
You) with Horn on piano and Ables. “It was the
relationship between Shirley and Carmen and their
talking about Sarah. It was like the three of them were
in the room,” he states.
Working with Horn provided Williams with the
major portion of his musical education. Horn’s slow
singing of ballads tailored his brushwork. “I had to
learn to make a wide figure eight on the snare in order
to keep with her timing. I learned to listen to know
when to play the fills. I found it fascinating to play
slow. You just have to tell your body and your mind to
slow down,” he relates. Talking about Horn, Williams
goes on, “My time on the road with her was very
precious. On the road, she became a mother figure, a
sister, a teacher, a best friend and almost like a love.”
Williams worked with Horn and Ables until their
deaths (Horn in 2005 and Ables a few years before
hers). Since then he has been working as leader with
his own quintet and as sideman with other musicians.
He also continues working with vocalists such as Teri
on board by the time of the group’s first album,
Vietnam, recorded at Greenwich Village’s Peace Church
in March 1972 and one of the late period ESP-Disk’
albums. The group worked steadily during the ‘70s,
releasing four more albums for four different labels:
Manhattan Cycles (India Navigation) came from a New
Year’s Eve performance of the Wadada Leo Smithpenned
title track in the titular borough; The Psyche
(RE: Records, 1975), also waxed in New York, was the
first disc to include tunes from each member; The
People’s Republic could be called the group’s major
label debut, recorded over three days in Burbank, CA
in December 1975 and released by A&M/Horizon; and
the eponymous Enja album from August 1977
documented a set from the swanky Moosham Castle in
Salzburgerland, Austria.
It is unclear whether the group split up over
anything more substantial than normal attrition.
Jenkins went on to record frequently as a leader. Sirone
joined Cecil Taylor’s 1978 Unit and later the cooperative
group Phalanx (and released two obscure sessions
under his own name) before settling permanently in
Europe. Cooper added more instruments to his arsenal
and split time between his own projects and sideman
work.
The group may have been consigned to history, its
influence felt solely through its excellent recordings
and heirs, but on May 30th, 2004, over a quartercentury
after their last performances and in the wake
Roiger who says of him, “Steve creates this tapestry of
sound. He listens so well to the song right with me and
never overplays. He always knows where the beat is
and his sense of swing is pure joy!” v
For more information visit abrushfire.com. Williams is at Jazz at
Kitano May 4th with Greg Abate, ShapeShifter Lab May 10th
with Teri Roiger, 55Bar May 11th with Roz Corral, 55Bar May
20th with Sean Smith, Somethin’ Jazz Club May 21st with
Larry Corban, Birdland May 23rd with Sally Knight and Village
Vanguard May 28th-Jun. 2nd with Joe Lovano. See Calendar.
Recommended Listening:
• Shirley Horn - I Thought About You (Verve, 1987)
• Carmen McRae - Sarah - Dedicated To You
(RCA Novus, 1990)
• Toots Thielemans - For My Lady (with the Shirley Horn
Trio) (EmArcy, 1991)
• Thurman Green - Dance of the Night Creatures
(Mapleshade, 1994)
• Shirley Horn - The Main Ingredient (Verve, 1995)
• Steve Williams - New Incentive (Elabeth, 2005)
of Mutable Music making The Psyche the first of their
albums to be available on CD, Jenkins, Sirone and
Cooper gave a transcendent reunion performance at
that year’s Vision Festival. Still adept and, more
importantly, still relevant, the reformed group went
into the studio a few weeks later to record And Now...
for Pi Recordings. In 2008 Mutable released a May 2005
concert from Warsaw, Poland as Beyond the Boundary of
Time and just this year put out Counterparts, the group’s
final concert, from Genoa, Italy in late 2005.
Jenkins passed away in 2007 and Sirone followed
two years later, ending any hope that Revolutionary
Ensemble would be as active in the Aughts as it was in
the ‘70s. But advanced jazz listeners can be happy one
of the most revolutionary ensembles in jazz history got
a second, well-deserved go-around. v
Recommended Listening:
• Revolutionary Ensemble - Vietnam (ESP-Disk’, 1972)
• Revolutionary Ensemble - Manhattan Cycles
(India Navigation, 1972)
• Revolutionary Ensemble - The Psyche
(RE: Records-Mutable Music, 1975)
• Revolutionary Ensemble - The People’s Republic
(A&M/Horizon, 1975)
• Revolutionary Ensemble - And Now...
(Pi Recordings, 2004)
• Revolutionary Ensemble - Counterparts
(Mutable Music, 2005)