New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
) is an American jazz drummer. He has played with Grover Washington,
Cedar Walton
Cedar Anthony Walton Jr. (January 17, 1934 – August 19, 2013) was an American hard bop jazz pianist. He came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakey's band, The Jazz Messengers, before establishing a long career as a bandleader and c ...
,
David Sanborn
David William Sanborn (July 30, 1945 – May 12, 2024) was an American alto saxophonist. He worked in many musical genres; his solo recordings typically blended jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He began playing the saxophone at the age o ...
,
Kirk Whalum
Kirk Whalum (born July 11, 1958) is an American R&B and smooth jazz saxophonist and songwriter. Whalum has recorded a series of commercially and critically acclaimed solo studio albums. Along with several film soundtracks, with music ranging fro ...
,
Joe Sample
Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) was an American jazz keyboardist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders in 1960, whose name was shortened to "The Crusaders" in 1971. He remained a p ...
,
The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer was an American vocal group founded in 1969 in New York City, performing music genres like a cappella, Brazilian jazz, Swing music, swing, vocalese, rhythm and blues, Pop music, pop, and standards. They have won eleven G ...
,
Nat Adderley
Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It ...
,
Roberta Flack
Roberta Cleopatra Flack (February 10, 1937 – February 24, 2025) was an American singer and pianist known for her emotive, genre-blending ballads that spanned R&B, jazz, Folk music, folk, and pop and contributed to the birth of the quiet storm ...
,
McCoy Tyner
Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1960 to 1965, and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA J ...
and others. Willams is a past member of the
Saturday Night Live Band
The Saturday Night Live Band (referred to in the closing credits as The Live Band) is the house band of the NBC television program ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'').
Role on ''Saturday Night Live''
The band consists of mostly jazz, R&B, and ...
The Color Purple
''The Color Purple'' is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.High School of Music and Art during which time he played with the group "Natural Essence". Williams graduated from
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory
A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music a ...
.
Career
In Leonard Feather’s 1976 review of Nat Adderley’s Adderley Quintet debut performance in Los Angeles, he described "an explosive drummer named Buddy Williams."
During the early 1980s, he toured with Corea and Return to Forever, then worked with
Bobby Lyle
Robert Lyle (born March 11, 1944) is an American jazz pianist/organist and educator.
Early life
Lyle was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 11, 1944, to parents Robert and Elise Lyle. He grew up in a musical household after the family moved fr ...
,
Eliane Elias
Eliane Elias (born 19 March 1960) is a Brazilian jazz pianist, singer, composer and arranger.
Biography
Elias was born in São Paulo, Brazil, on 19 March 1960. She started studying piano when she was seven, and at age twelve she was transcribing ...
Michel Petrucciani
Michel Petrucciani (; ; 28 December 1962 – 6 January 1999) was a French jazz pianist. From birth he had osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. Despite his health condition and rel ...
and McCoy Tyner, playing on his "
Looking Out
''Looking Out'' is an album by the jazz pianist McCoy Tyner released on the Columbia label in 1982. It has performances by Tyner with Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Gary Bartz, vocalist Phyllis Hyman and a string section.
Reception
The Allmus ...
" album.
In 1981, Williams co-wrote "Lovin' You" with Roberta Flack for the Bustin' Loose soundtrack.
Discography
As sideman
With
Nat Adderley
Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It ...
Hummin'
''Hummin is an album by jazz cornetist Nat Adderley recorded in 1976 and released on the Dutch Little David label.Andy Bey
Andrew Wideman Bey Jr. (October 28, 1939 – April 26, 2025) was an American jazz singer and pianist. Bey had a wide vocal range, with a four-octave baritone voice.
Raised in Newark, New Jersey,Adler, David R"Andy Bey" ''JazzTimes'', April 25, ...
Carla Bley
Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936 – October 17, 2023) was an American jazz composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she gained acclaim for her jazz opera ''Escalator ...
Doug Carn
Doug Carn (born July 14, 1948) is an American jazz musician from St. Augustine, Florida, formerly married to Jean Carne and known for his several albums released for Black Jazz Records. Carn is a multi-instrumentalist known primarily for his work ...
* ''Revelation'' (Black Jazz, 1973)
With George Freeman
* '' Man & Woman'' (Groove Merchant, 1974)
With
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...
Dave Grusin
Robert David Grusin (born June 26, 1934) is an American composer, arranger, producer, jazz pianist, and band leader. He has composed many scores for feature films and television and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, incl ...
* ''Dave Grusin & The GRP All-Stars - Live in Japan'' (Arista Records, 1981)
With
Jaroslav Jakubovic
Jaroslav (also written as Yaroslav or Jarosław in other Slavic languages) is a Czech and Slovak first name, pagan in origin. Its feminine form is Jaroslava.
There are several possible origins of the name Jaroslav. It is very likely that origin ...
* ''Checkin' In'' (Columbia, 1978)
With Howard Johnson and Gravity
* ''
Testimony
Testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter.
Etymology
The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness.
Law
In the law, testimon ...
'' (Tuscarora, 2017)
With
Hugh Masekela
Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 January 2018) was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father of South African jazz". Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and f ...
Lee Ritenour
Lee Mack Ritenour ( ; born January 11, 1952) is an American jazz guitarist who has been active since the late 1960s.
Biography
Ritenour was born in 1952, in Los Angeles, California. At the age of eight he started playing guitar and four years l ...
* ''
Rio
Rio or Río is the Portuguese and Spanish word for "river". The word also exists in Italian, but is largely obsolete and used in a poetical or literary context to mean "stream".
Rio, RIO or Río may also refer to:
Places United States
* Rio, Fl ...
'' (1979)
With
David Sanborn
David William Sanborn (July 30, 1945 – May 12, 2024) was an American alto saxophonist. He worked in many musical genres; his solo recordings typically blended jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He began playing the saxophone at the age o ...
Sonny Sharrock
Warren Harding "Sonny" Sharrock (August 27, 1940 – May 25, 1994) was an American jazz guitarist. His first wife was singer Linda Sharrock, with whom he recorded and performed.
One of only a few prominent guitarists who participated in the fir ...
&
Linda Sharrock
Linda Sharrock (also Lynda Sharrock) (born Linda Chambers, April 2, 1947, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American jazz singer.
Career
Sharrock sang in church choirs as a child. Interested in both folk music and jazz, she studied art while in c ...
* ''Paradise'' (ATCO Records, 1975)
With
Valerie Simpson
Ashford & Simpson were an American husband-and-wife songwriting, production and recording duo composed of Nickolas Ashford (May 4, 1941 – August 22, 2011) and Valerie Simpson (born August 26, 1946).
Ashford was born in Fairfield, South Carol ...
* ''Valerie Simpson'' (Tamla, 1972)
With
Lonnie Liston Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith Jr. (born December 28, 1940) is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician who played with such jazz artists as Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before forming Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes, recording a number of ...
McCoy Tyner
Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1960 to 1965, and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA J ...
* ''
Looking Out
''Looking Out'' is an album by the jazz pianist McCoy Tyner released on the Columbia label in 1982. It has performances by Tyner with Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Gary Bartz, vocalist Phyllis Hyman and a string section.
Reception
The Allmus ...
'' (Columbia, 1982)
With
Luther Vandross
Luther Ronzoni Vandross Jr. (April 20, 1951 – July 1, 2005) was an American Soul music, soul and Contemporary R&B, R&B singer, songwriter, and record producer. Over his career, he achieved eleven consecutive RIAA certification, RIAA-certified ...
Cedar Walton
Cedar Anthony Walton Jr. (January 17, 1934 – August 19, 2013) was an American hard bop jazz pianist. He came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakey's band, The Jazz Messengers, before establishing a long career as a bandleader and c ...
* ''
Animation
Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...
'' (Columbia, 1978)
* ''
Soundscapes
A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term, originally coined by Michael Southworth, was popularized by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ra ...