When jazz pianist John Williams sits in on a set at the Blue Star next month, it may be obvious that his jazz provenance is a cut above the rest.
Though today he lives with his wife in a quiet retirement community west of Vero, during the bebop era of the 1940s and ‘50s, Williams was a fixture on a jazz scene in its heyday.
That era was about the only time he hasn’t fought the confusion over his name: this is not the John Williams of Hollywood film score fame, though he briefly played jazz piano as well.
This John Williams found fame when jazz was at the peak of its popularity. He appeared with, toured with, and recorded with a host of legendary jazz stars.
And it is the same John Williams who was a long-time city commissioner of Hollywood, FL, and the namesake of a popular park there.
As recently as 2011, when a new boxed set of Stan Getz recordings was coming out, a press release crediting Williams on piano added parenthetically that he’d gone on to score films. The mistake provoked a flurry of mentions on the Internet, including one by the noted music journalist Doug Ramsey who elaborated on the goof in a blog post.
Ramsey recalled Williams’ distinctive style – and the fact that he’d sold one of his albums for a song though it was fetching $300 a copy (in Japan.)
“Williams was identifiable by a keyboard touch that produced a spikey, percussive, rollicking forward motion, an infectious swing,” wrote Ramsey. “He managed to make his listeners anticipate what was coming in a solo and yet surprise them when he got there.”
Equally surprising is the fact that Williams got to Vero. He and his wife Mary first retired to Sebring in the mid-1990s. But they found themselves driving up to Vero so often to visit and play gigs with friends (including Dixieland drummer Red Hawley) that they ended up moving here in 2002. Williams still plays at the club at the Brennity, where the couple lives, as well as bars and clubs around town.
It’s a far cry from the days the pianist played with Getz, Charlie Parker, and Cannonball Adderley, all saxophonists; drummers Max Roach and Mel Lewis; and trumpeters Charlie Barnet and Chet Baker.
Bebop, born almost 75 years ago, is considered the epitome of the jazz art form, an approach to improvisation that employs a dazzling array of notes in connected phrases, usually at “up” tempos, and with more complex harmonies than the standard chords of previous genres.
Most importantly, bebop’s beat must excite the player in order to infect the listener.
“Unless that rhythm is really cooking, you can’t get that elevation,” says Williams. “You can’t get that joyous feeling.”
Williams started piano lessons at age 8 with the church organist in his hometown of Windsor, VT. Within a few years he was learning on his own as he gravitated to pop and jazz. He and his brother would be glued to radio’s big band programs late into the night, surreptitiously tucked under the bedclothes, radio and all, so their mom wouldn’t find out.
As a freshman in high school, he had a chance to play with a local band whose members were considerably older. “My so-called street education started there,” he says.
His six months of study years later at the Manhattan School of Music was all the formal education he had.
“I’ve obviously regretted all my life not having had more.”
Regardless, his self-taught regimen worked out well enough. At the ripe old age of 16, he was asked to tour with the Mal Hallett orchestra, one of the premier swing bands out of Boston.
“Mother had a fit,” said Williams. While she naturally resisted his going on tour for half his school year, his dad, who played piano by ear, was sympathetic to his son’s musical aspirations.
“So she and Dad agreed that if I promised to come back and finish school, I could go,” he recalls.
“I celebrated VJ Day with that band by playing at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, NJ. That was some experience for a 16-year-old. But then I did go back home as I had promised. For the second half of that year I doubled up with both my junior and senior classes, and graduated with my class in 1946.”
The Korean Conflict accounted for Williams’ two years as an army bandsman both here at home and in Korea. In 1953, after his army stint, he wisely settled in New York City, the hub of the jazz scene in those years. It was during this period that Williams appeared on more than two dozen jazz albums, including two of his own trio albums on the EmArcy label, a subsidiary of the Mercury label.
Williams is quick to point out that jazz didn’t pay all the bills.
“A lot of good musicians would from time to time get a chance to go on the Vincent Lopez Orchestra which worked at the Taft Hotel for 25 years. The salary was terrific and at both lunch and dinner there was a radio remote that paid extra.”
Playing second piano to Vincent Lopez was not so terrific, he says. But he stuck it out for three months from Christmas to early spring, when the gig suddenly wasn’t as swinging as he’d thought.
“St. Patrick’s Day came and I came running in almost late, as usual. The band was up on the bandstand wearing green hats, green boots and green bow ties. I got up on the bandstand and Vincent said, ‘Go get your suit.’ I said, ‘I don’t think I want to do that,’ and, of course, I got fired on the spot.”
In the late 1950s, Williams picked up stakes and moved to Miami. “I had friends in Florida and when I got there I thought I was in heaven. I played Miami Beach with a jazz trio and a good singer. There was jazz all around and I played everywhere.”
However, as the popularity of jazz waned in the 1960s, Williams sought other employment, first as an account executive for a national advertising firm, then at the Home Savings Bank where he was an officer for 17 years.
Settling into Hollywood, FL, he took in interest in civic life, and in 1971, ran for city commissioner.
“I’ve always had an intense interest in American history and politics,” he says. “I was urged and pushed to do it. Nobody thought I could win, least of all myself. Who’s going to vote for a piano player working in a club in Miami? But they did!”
He served for five terms, concentrating his efforts to preserve open lands, one of which was named John Williams Park upon his retirement. “I fought like the dickens to save some major tracts of pristine land before they could be built on. It was a good major accomplishment. They’ll be there long after I’ve gone.”
Williams will be sitting in with Ed Shanaphy and Friends during the first set (starting around 7 p.m.) Wednesday Nov. 4 at Blue Star bar and restaurant, 2227 14th Avenue.