The jazz world lost a bright star when legendary pianist and composer Jessica Williams died on Saturday, March 12, 2022, at her home in Yakima, Washington, along with her devoted husband Duncan. She is 73 years old.
Williams was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1948 and started playing the piano at the age of four. After completing her classical training, she studied classical music and listening training with Richard Aitken and George Bellows at the Peabody School of Music. From an early age, Williams demonstrated the ability to see musical notes as colors, consistent with synesthesia. It’s best described as sensory overlap, such as hearing a note and perceiving it as a color.
William’s career is documented on 50 albums as a leader spanning nearly half a century. Known for her amazing technique, she plays with wit and grace. Although she is familiar with the music of classical jazz pianists such as Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, she credits saxophonists John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins as her main influences as a pianist and composer. The adventurous spirit she found in the trumpeter led to her fascination with Thelonious Monk, who became one of the most engaging and innovative interpreters of his genius. Munch’s approach to semitones became an integral part of her piano style.
As a teenager in Baltimore, Williams professionally mastered and played the Hammond B-3 organ and piano. In 1976, before moving to the West Coast, she played regularly with Joe Jones in Philadelphia, which initially ended up in San Francisco. In 1977, she became the pianist of the house band at the famous Keystone Korner nightclub in San Francisco. There, she performed with Eddie Harris, Bobby Hutcherson, Stan Getz, Tony Williams and Charlie Haden. Over time, she began to perform with her own trio and continued to tour in this format, playing solo for the next few decades.
Williams lives in the Pacific Northwest, intermittently in Seattle, Portland and Yakima, Washington. During the last 20 years of her Northwestern music career, she formed a legendary trio with bassists Jeff Johnson, Doug Miller and Dave Captein, and drummers Dick Berk, Mel Brown and John Bishop.
In the 1990s, Williams took over her job and started a record label and publishing company. Backed by a successful Internet mail order business, Red and Blue Recordings and JJW Music started their music in 1997.
In 2004, her album LIVE at Yoshi’s Volume One (Maxjazz, 2004) was nominated for a Grammy. She received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Rockefeller Composition Fellowship and an Alice B. Toklas Fellowship for Women Composers. She received a prestigious grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Williams performed at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2004 and 2006. exist. During her long career, she has performed at major festivals and venues around the world. She has been a guest on NPR’s Fresh Air with Marian McPartland’s piano jazz Terry Gross and was interviewed by the BBC in Brecon, Wales .
In 2012, Williams underwent complex spinal fusion surgery in Seattle before losing his ability to perform and touring. In 2017, she was diagnosed with cancer. Williams’ place in the pantheon of mainstream jazz pianists of her generation is solid. Although not as well known as pianists like Mulgrew Miller and Kenny Barron, Williams’ original approach and virtuosity permeated the male-dominated jazz world of his era. Her complex and intuitive personality is also legendary, marked by honesty and a commitment to civil rights.
