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Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Claude "fiddler" Williams 

Claude Williams left his body Monday at 4 A.M. Best known for his work with pianist Jay MacShann the 96 year old's career was really three separate careers in three distinct jazz eras. I knew Claude from my stint at Kansas City's City Light and the 80's K.C. jazz renaissance. More about that later. For now here is the fine article from the Kansas City Star.

Posted on Mon, Apr. 26, 2004





KC jazz musician who won global acclaim with violin dies

By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH and ERIC ADLER

The Kansas City Star


Claude "Fiddler" Williams, a standard-bearer of Kansas City music for more than six decades, died early Sunday at Research Medical Center.

He was 96.

Blanche Williams, 66, Williams' wife for 12 years, was at her husband's bedside when he died at 4 a.m. Her husband, she said, would love to be remembered as a passionate, passionate violinist.

He loved his music, she said. And he loved making people happy and feeling his music. He wanted them to feel it. He lived for his music.

Williams, who even in his advanced age played frequent public gigs (his last performance was at the Plaza III restaurant in December), was one of the last remaining links to Kansas City's jazz era of the 1930s. During his storied career, he played with such renowned musicians as Count Basie, Lester Young, Mary Lou Williams and Andy Kirk.

Williams' music was ageless and filled with an irresistible joy, and he was one of the few jazz musicians to gain fame playing the violin. In 1997, he told The Kansas City Star that he would like to be remembered as one of the best jazz fiddlers in the world.

He was good, Kansas City jazz great Jay McShann said Sunday afternoon. He was a good musician. He enjoyed playing.

Pam Hider Johnson, program director for the Elder Statesmen of Jazz, said: He is an icon. Just like we love Buck O'Neil, we love Claude Fiddler' Williams.

Reviewing a 1996 performance by Williams at the JVC Jazz Festival in New York, Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Williams made the violin a smooth-talking tease, sly and ebullient, with phrases that sounded like classy, witty wolf whistles.

Williams laughed when he read the review. I try to make my violin talk. I try to tell stories.

The word retirement was not even in his vocabulary, Blanche Williams said Sunday. Until falling ill with pneumonia and being admitted to the hospital on April 5, Williams' schedule included teaching master violin classes in California in August and at a camp in New Jersey in August and September.

He said that as long as his fingers still worked, he would, Blanche Williams said.

Williams' career began in the 1920s. Born in Muskogee, Okla., on Feb. 22, 1908, Williams was the youngest of four brothers and two sisters.

He started out playing guitar, mandolin and bass, and later took up the violin, crediting the great jazz violinist Joe Venuti as a key influence.

He arrived in Kansas City in 1928 and found work with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy. After five years of traveling and playing one-nighters, Williams left the group to settle in Kansas City, a place for musicians from around the country to hone their skills in jam sessions.

Musicians would come from as far away as Texas and Chicago to learn how to do it, he said. We showed them the right way to do it and straightened up their playing.

In Kansas City, Williams often saw a young Charlie Parker, who later achieved greatness.

He was only 13 at the time, Williams recalled. Everywhere he went, you'd see that saxophone under his arm. He'd sometimes break up our session because he'd play that real wild stuff.

Williams played a stint with the big band of Alphonso Trent in the early '30s. Trent's was the first black big band allowed to play at white clubs in Oklahoma, Williams said. For nine months each year, Williams also played in Peoria, Ill., at clubs with Nat King Cole's brother, Eddie. He left the Cole band after several contracts fell through.

Good thing I did, too, or else I wouldn't have been able to play with Basie, Williams said.

In Chicago, Basie heard Williams and asked him to join his up-and-coming band.

Count came up looking for me because the guys in Kansas City told him about my playing, he said.

After Basie left Kansas City in 1936, wooed to New York by record producer John Hammond, Williams was replaced by guitarist Freddie Green. Basie fired five players in one night.

Williams returned to Kansas City and played with various Kansas City bands until 1940, when he moved to Michigan.

Me and George Lee moved to Flint because he had a girlfriend there and I told him I'd go with him, Williams said. We put together a band out of the common laborers there. It finally broke up when several of the boys had to go into the service.

A musician at night, Williams worked as a welder during the day. During World War II he served briefly in the Naval Reserve until he was discharged because of a sinus problem.

He found work in bands playing blues and jazz in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. He returned to Kansas City in 1952.

I started playing at the Orchid, he said. It was a really good gig. They would broadcast live every Saturday afternoon.

In the decades that followed, Williams sometimes found the pickings lean on the local and national scene, but his fame in Europe grew. A big career break came in 1988 he was 80 years old when he was selected to play in a Broadway revue called Black and Blue. Although the show garnered mixed reviews, it gave Williams' career a welcome boost, spurring national publicity and worldwide tours.

He performed at then President Bill Clinton's second inaugural, toured Australia and released Live at J's, Volumes 1 & 2, which the Village Voice named among the best jazz recordings of the year.

By the mid-'90s, Williams was working regularly at nightclubs throughout the nation, appearing with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and touring with the Elder Statesmen of Jazz, a group of musicians that included Al Grey, Harry Sweets Edison, Jane Jarvis, Benny Waters, Rick Fay and Louie Bellson.

But Louie couldn't play much because he's getting up in age, you know, Williams once said with a wink and a mischievous grin. At the time, Williams was weeks away from his 90th birthday, and Bellson was 73.

In the early 1990s, Williams was the first jazz musician inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, and he released another CD, King of Kansas City, featuring several Kansas City musicians.

Williams married Blanche in 1991. He was happiest when playing in public, she said, whether it was in a jazz club, on stage at Carnegie Hall or at his own church in Kansas City.

One of his best performances was playing Silent Night' at Christmas Mass, Blanche Williams said. It was beautiful, and I'll always remember that one.

In 2000, Williams' leg was broken in a serious car accident. Soon after, Blanche Williams said, he was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease. Still, he performed regularly, especially on weekend nights at Plaza III on the Country Club Plaza, which he considered his home base. On his birthday, after his car accident, he gave a performance at the Blue Room in the 18th and Vine Jazz District that jazz artist Bobby Watson said he would never forget.

He had an unrelenting urge to always swing, Watson said Sunday. Right after his car accident, he was supposed to sit down and play. I think it was his 92nd birthday. Everyone was saying, ‘Hey now, Claude, take it easy.' He heard that he just stood up, he just kicked that stool back and turned the place out.

I've just always admired his strength, his longevity and youthful attitude. He never stopped. He was always pushing it.

In April last year, not long after Blanche Williams was diagnosed with colon cancer and found it difficult to care for her husband at home, Williams went to live at Swope Ridge Geriatric Hospital.

On March 11, Williams entered Research Medical Center and was in the hospital for two weeks, including five days in intensive care, with severe pneumonia. Though critically ill, he recovered even when few thought he would, Blanche Williams said.

Then, on April 5, he returned to the hospital with double pneumonia, she said.

We all knew how sick he was, Williams said. He never complained. Never. Not one time did he complain about feeling bad or anything.

After April 5, Williams never left the hospital. For the last week and a half, Blanche Williams said, her husband had been unresponsive. At his side, she said, she simply sat and talked to him, comforting him.

I told him that millions of people love him, she said.

A visitation and memorial jazz session is tentatively scheduled for 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday at Watkins Brothers Memorial Chapel, 4000 Emanuel Cleaver II Blvd. A funeral service will be held next Monday at St. Louis Catholic Church, 5930 Swope Parkway, with burial at Mount Moriah Cemetery, 10507 Holmes Road.

Claude loved an audience, Blanche Williams said. Knowing him as I do, he would want a lot of people there, tapping their feet and celebrating his going home.



Sunday, April 18, 2004

Talk about jazz web sites! 

Got a few hours to burn? Jazzcorner.com can take care of your needs. This site is vast and very well put togather. With hours worth of datao on current artist it also has excellent quality audio for each.


Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Birdland 

Is there a better name for a jazz club than this? Check this web site!

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Chuck Niles 

As most jazz fans know, one of America's greatest jazz stations resides in Long Beach California. KKJZ, 88.1 FM has long entertained and enlightened area fans. It is no coincidence that one of the all-time best Jazz DJ's has call KKJZ his home for 50 years. Chuck Niles passed on March 15th of this year. A fine tribute to Chuck can be found at www.kkjz.org.

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