Jessica Williams (musician)


Jessica Jennifer Williams is an American jazz pianist and composer.

Early life

Williams was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 17, 1948. She started playing the piano at age four, began music lessons with a private teacher at five, and at age seven was enrolled into the Peabody Preparatory. She studied classical music and ear training with Richard Aitken and George Bellows at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.
She showed an ability to see each note's color as she heard it, consistent with synesthesia. She discussed how this inspired her early interest in the piano in a televised with the BBC.
Williams also had the ability to play anything she heard. At age twelve she was listening to Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus. She knew she was destined to become a jazz pianist.
She began performing jazz in her teens, playing with Richie Cole, Buck Hill, and Mickey Fields.
In a with Marian McPartland on NPR's Piano Jazz, she states that her main influences were not pianists, but horn players, most notably Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Musical career

In June 1976, she began performing regularly with the "Philly Joe" Jones band in New Jersey, and with Lex Humphries in Philadelphia and New York City, before moving to the West Coast in October 1976.
In 1977, Williams moved to San Francisco, where she played in various house bands at the Keystone Korner. She played in the bands of Eddie Harris, Tony Williams, Stan Getz, Bobby Hutcherson, and Charlie Haden, eventually leading her own jazz trio, and recording for the next several decades.
In 1997, she established her own record label, . She also started her publishing company, JJW Music/ASCAP, and an internet mail order business, .
She appeared at the 2004 and 2006 "Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festivals" at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C..
She also appeared in festivals and venues worldwide, including The Purcell Room in London, The , The Monterey Jazz Festival, The New Morning in Paris, Spivey Hall in Georgia, and hundreds of other venues. She was a guest on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and Marian McPartland's acclaimed , as well as being interviewed by the in Brecon, Wales.
In 2012, Jessica had a spinal fusion with internal instrumentation at Swedish Hospital's Neurosurgery Unit in Seattle, WA, and subsequently to perform.
Jessica Williams now lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest, and no longer tours. She continues to make new music, including electronic music and neoclassical music, and remains a lifelong advocate of Civil Rights.

Awards and honors

With Charlie Rouse