Buster Williams

Buster Williams Biography

Buster Williams (b. 1942 is a U.S. jazz bassist. Born Charles Anthony Williams Jr in Camden, New Jersey, USA on the 17th April 1942, his mother was a seamstress and his father was a bassist, and worked various day jobs to support his family. In 1959 he began working with Jimmy Heath whose quartet included Sam Dockery on piano and the legendary Specs Wright on drums. At the age of seventeen Williams was playing with Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, just one month after graduating from Camden High School in 1960, and stayed with them for a year until the band got stranded in Kansas City. Back home in Camden, Williams took some courses at Combs College of Music in Philadelphia. When Dakota Staton heard him with the Gerald Price Trio, he hired them on the spot. In 1962, Williams moved on to work with singer Betty Carter, and then Sarah Vaughan, who took him on his first European tour. He started meeting musicians who went on to figure heavily in his future, such as Miles Davis, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, George Coleman, and Tony Williams. In 1969, Williams moved to New York City and joined the Herbie Hancock Mwandishi Sextet for the next three years, doubling on acoustic and electric bass, and also worked with Mary Lou Williams (1973–75) and Ron Carter's quartet (1977–78). Since the 1980s, Williams has appeared as a sideman on a significative number of session records with notable jazz instrumentalists and vocalists, although opportunities to lead his own sessions have been rare. In 2008 Williams began releasing a series of live albums exclusively for download through his company, Buster Williams Productions. Live Volume 1 was released in June 2008.