Thank you for the honor of saying a few words about the legendary drummer Tony Williams. Besides his virtuosic ability, he also passed along the three basic ingredients which enable a musician to reach higher levels of performance. According to Tony those three were Technique, Creativity, and Feel. I tried to dig a little deeper into them and came up with my own broader definitions of them.
FEEL or the ability to emote, allows us to unleash our emotions and releasing us from the fear of making mistakes.
CREATIVITY is great word but, I prefer the word imagination for here is where the impossible becomes possible; it is where the magic resides.
TECHNIQUE enables us to construct on the drum set what we were hearing in our heads.
When you watch and listen to Tony all three of these come into focus under one umbrella.
I learned a lot from him on how to “dress up” a rhythm or beat. His drumming on Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island” is a great example of how a simple pattern starts to shine without changing the original rhythm.
The tune “Fred” on Tony’s “Believe It” album is a wonderful example of a drumbeat in flight alternating between a straight 4 and half-time at a low dynamic, then erupting like a volcano.
If you want to get blown away with on-the-spot composing, check out the YouTube video of him with Stan Getz playing over a Latin vamp.
In closing, listen to how he takes the Beatles “Blackbird” and makes it his own, just like Joe Cocker did on “With A Little Help From My Friends” and Natalie Cole on “Ticket to Ride”.
He was truly a believer of appreciating all styles when he said, “You should be able to play with Miles one night and Glen Campbell the next”
In closing, thank you Tony. I don’t think we will ever catch up to you but we can sure have fun trying.
Bill Lettang
