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• 1 media/4367175385_0b1a59806b_b.jpg media/Buster-Willliams.jpg 2017-03-28T10:44:32-07:00 Buster Williams 61 Jazz Bassist image_header 2017-05-11T15:39:44-07:00 37.7749295,-122.41941550000001 34.0522° N, -118.2437° W 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E 39.9259° N, -75.1196° W

  Biography
  Charles Anthony “Buster” Williams was born to Charles Anthony Williams Sr. and Gladys Williams on April 17, 1942 in Camden, New Jersey. His mother worked as a seamstress in Camden while his father worked various jobs during the day and would play jazz gigs with a number of different groups to fulfill his passion for playing jazz. Charles Anthony Williams Sr.’s passion for jazz bass metamorphosed into a teacher-student relationship between him and his son, Buster. As an adolescent, Buster recalls after school he “was suppose to practice, and then [his father] would listen while eating his dinner.” Buster’s admiration for his father motivated him to vigorously practice as Charles Anthony Williams Sr. lovingly pushed his son to become a talented jazz bassist, “It was an unwritten law that I had to play it right or hear about it [from his father]. I was going to be the best”.
  
  In 1959, at the age of 17, Williams began to play with Jimmy Heath’s quartet which included a talented rhythm section including Samuel “Sure-Footed Sam” Dockery on piano and Charles “Specs” Wright on drums. After graduating high school in 1960, Buster Williams hit the road for a year, traveling with a new group including Gene Ammons and Sonny Sitt throughout the country. However, Williams found himself stranded in Kansas City in 1961 after Ammons ran off with the group’s earnings. Upon returning home, the young bassist decided to take courses in Composition, Harmony and Theory at Combs College of Music in Philadelphia. Williams joined the Gerald Price Trio after being spotted by the vocalist Dakota Staton. This led to Williams making his first European tour in 1962 when the group joined Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan. During his European tour, Williams met jazz icons such as Miles Davis, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, George Coleman and Tony Williams who have influenced his playing style ever since.
  
  In 1964, Williams joined the vocalist Nancy Wilson and moved to Los Angeles where he met and married his wife, Veronica Williams. During his time working with Wilson, Williams produced six albums while simultaneously producing several albums with Miles Davis. In 1968, Williams returned to New York. Upon his return he joined up with Art Blakey, Herbie Mann, Herbie Hancock, Billy Hart and Mary Lou Williams, together forming the Herbie Hancock Sextet.

  
  After joining the Sextet, Williams’ notoriety and popularity grew rapidly. In 1980, Williams was nominated for a Grammy Award for his work on the album "Love For Sale" with a group called The Great Jazz Trio. He was featured in several commercials and hired to produce movie soundtracks. In 1991, Williams was presented with a National Endowment for the Arts Grant as well as a New York for the Arts Fellowship Grant. The grant money helped Buster Williams construct the Buster Williams Quintet named “Something More”. In his own words; “After working almost continuously for 30 years as a sideman I decided it was time to take the plunge, step up to the front, play my music, and express my concept of a cohesive musical unit. I've served my apprenticeship under many great masters and feel that it's my honor and privilege to carry on the lineage that makes this music such an artistically rich art form”. Today, Williams continues to record and tour with his band “Something More”, consistently producing hits such as "Enchanted Flower". The 75 year old continues to be happily married to his wife Veronica and makes his home in his childhood town of Camden, NJ.
  
  Buster Williams on Mentorship
  The following is an interview between Buster Williams and Monk Rowe (January, 2002).
  
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  Table of Contents
  1. Evolution of Jazz Mentorship
  2. Introduction
  3. History of Jazz Education and Mentorship
  4. Buster Williams
  5. Germaine Bazzle
  6. Bob Schulz
  7. Allan Vache
  8. Claude Williams
  9. Race in Jazz Education and DH
  10. Modern Mentorship
  11. Our Other DH Method
  12. Conclusion
  13. Additional Works Cited ​
  14. Annotated Bibliography
  15. Process
  16. Rubric
   
• 1 media/4367175385_0b1a59806b_b.jpg media/terence_slide-59f4991771db5dc5241fd42497e10a7075970db6-s900-c85.jpg 2017-04-25T10:48:25-07:00 Introduction 59 An examination of the shift from mentorship to institutionalized jazz education image_header 2017-05-11T14:53:18-07:00
  What is digital humanities?
  Digital humanities (DH) is a field in which researchers and teachers utilize computerized/digitized resources to accumulate and analyze information pertaining to the human experience from antiquity to the modernity. It is a dynamic field; constantly adapting to meet the evolving needs of those who wish to utilize DH resources as a provocative academic resource. As the print medium is supplanted by digitalized media, humanity projects must adapt to the digital to maintain accessibility, engage desired populations and distribute important information in a modern, effective manner.
  
  The Jazz Mentorship Project
  In this anecdotally-based Jazz DH project, you will explore how mentorship has influenced jazz education by instrumental type and temporally. You will be pushed to confront the following questions:  How did mentorship influence the early jazz musicians in becoming the notable jazz icons of the 21st centuries? Are jazz mentorships losing influence as jazz education has integrated into the classroom over the last 50 years? Is the passage of jazz via mentorship completely lost in our modern education system (e.g. college courses focused on jazz theory and composition)? To address these questions, we examine five jazz musicians thoughts on mentorship (sometimes referred to as apprenticeship) through their interviews with Monk Rowe and Michael Woods, directors of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive.  These jazz musicians include bassist Buster Williams, vocalist Germaine Bazzle, cornetist Bob Schulz, clarinetist Allan Vache, and violinist Claude "Fiddler" Williams. Through these interviews, you will investigate what has prompted the shift in jazz education from jazz's mentorship roots to a more institutionalized  education. Additionally, you will be introduced to on-going efforts to return the mentorship-based jazz education within the confines of formal jazz education, such as the Jazz Education Network Program.
  
  As you will soon read and hear, traditional jazz education in the form of mentorship was inherently personal. Thus, institutionalization of jazz education and thought coincides with the loss what jazz was meant to represent for early musicians. The loss of intimacy in jazz education may be one of the reasons jazz seems to be lost in popularity in modern American culture, as musicians maintain more superficial relationships with peers and tend to learn in a more impersonal manner as compared to previous generations.
  
  Previous Page
  Next Page
  
  Table of Contents
  1. Evolution of Jazz Mentorship
  2. Introduction
  3. History of Jazz Education and Mentorship
  4. Buster Williams
  5. Germaine Bazzle
  6. Bob Schulz
  7. Allan Vache
  8. Claude Williams
  9. Race in Jazz Education and DH
  10. Modern Mentorship
  11. Our Other DH Method
  12. Conclusion
  13. Additional Works Cited ​
  14. Annotated Bibliography
  15. Process
  16. Rubric