Gene Williams with Tal Farlow

[epistrophy007]

Just curious about how this singer came in to view for this jamsession... Not that I don't like his singing, but in the company of Farlow, Costa & Burke, the appearance of Williams seems a bit out of context.

Gene Williams was mostly active in the 40s with Claude Thornhill, led a recording date in 51 with his own orchestra including musicians like Kai Winding, Barry Galbraith, Billy Taylor, Danny Bank, Eddie Safranski,...but for the rest his contributions seem scarce.

Some ideas' about who this guy was or is?

j.

[Larry Kart]

Ira Gitler's liner notes to "Fuerst Set" explains things pretty clearly, though Farlow and Vinnie Burke disagree about whether they played after dinner or after a gig.

"Back in the Forties," Gitler writes, "[Williams] sang with the Claude Thornhill orchestra (it was at this time that he and Ed Fuerst [in whose Manhattan apartment the session was held] met, and in 1949 he led his own band which mixed his romantic balladry with a jazz book that featured tenor players like Brew Moore, Zoot Sims, and Buddy Arnold at various times."

Farlow, quoted by Gitler, amplifies: "[Ed] invited myself and my wife to dinner with Gene Williams. We had dinner and then we played. Eddie and Vinnie came up after dinner. It was after we [Farlow, Burke, and Costa] had played a couple of engagements at the Composer.

Burke told Gitler that they got together at Fuerst's fairly often around 4 a.m., after playing at the Composer, but concedes that these recordings might have made after dinner, as Farlow recalled.

Gitler adds that Williams was "well known to New York musicians in the Sixties as their favorite bartender when he was pouring the shots at hangouts like Junior's and Charlie's." Williams, it would seem, was just one of the guys. Also, it's not like jazz musicians only associated with "jazz" singers.

[AllenLowe]

something interesting, I think, is how much Gene Williams (at least with the Thornhill band, I don't remember the other stuff) sounds like Harry Connick. Especially on Sorta Kinda.

[epistrophy007]

Thank's for the replies!!!

Unfortunately my cd doesn't include the original linernotes...

j