Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music
WILLIAMS, John (pianist)
(
b John Thomas Williams, 28 January 1929, Windsor VT;
d 15 December 2018, Wilmington NC) Jazz pianist with a unique style, spikey but flowing forward and swinging. He was already on the road with the Mal Halllet band when he was a teenager; served in Korea in the U.S. Army Jazz Band who made trio albums for Emarcy in 1954-5 and played in Stan Getz's quartet and quintet, also with Cannonball Adderley, Zoot Sims and others. His first LP was a 10" record, and he joked that after he and his mother each had a copy, they wondered who had bought the third one. Decades later mint copies were fetching hundreds of dollars. The second album was a 12", and both were reissued on a Fresh Sound CD, but Williams had left professional music in the late '50s, not on a whim but as a banker: working at the Home Savings Bank, he became a city commissioner in Hollywood, Florida, where he also ran the local jazz festival. He was a great nature and animal lover who helped to preserve east-coast Florida's natural areas, and had a park named after him.