Tony Williams of Spotlite Records dies at 80

[mikeweil]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/26/tony-williams-obituary

Tony Williams, the founder of Spotlite Records, died at age 80 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for a few years.

Spotlite reissued all the Dial sessions of Charlie Parker and others, along with a lot of rare small label bebop sessions  and air checks. I still have almost all of these LPs on my shelves.

R.I.P. - thanks for this deep introduction to bebop.

Edited January 12, 2022 by mikeweil

[JSngry]

Great work, a substantive contributive legacy. RIP. 

[Quasimado]

Sorry to hear that - incredible what he put out! A lot of love went into that catalogue! RIP. 

[Brad]

Sorry to hear that as well. Years ago — probably late 90s — I spoke to him when I was purchasing several CDs from him. His contribution was enormous. RIP. 

[Peter Friedman]

R.I.P.

I too purchased many of his Spotlite recordings over the years. Tony not only put out all that great Charlie Parker material, but also released quite a number recordings by British musicians that I enjoyed.

[Big Beat Steve]

The contributions of Tony Williams and Spotlilte to making bebop recordings available went WAAAY beyond Bird. His recordings by Dexter Gordon, Gray/Hasselgard, the Billy Eckstine big band, the "Master Saxes" LPs, obscurities like Afro-Cuban bebop and Gene Roland and many others in that vein filled a lot of gaps on the reissue market.

R.I.P.

[BillF]

I think I'm right in saying Tony Williams arranged UK visits by US musicians in the 1970s.

That's how I got to hear Al Haig and Joe Albany in Manchester.

With the Spotlite albums at last we could hear the Parker Dials properly. Up till then I'd had to make do with max surface noise on labels like Guilde du Jazz.

[mikeweil]

3 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

The contributions of Tony Williams and Spotlilte to making bebop recordings available went WAAAY beyond Bird. His recordings by .... the Billy Eckstine big band, ....

That was the first LP he released!

Here's a list of releases: https://www.discogs.com/label/124617-Spotlite-Records

[Shrdlu]

This IS sad news. I had no idea that he was unwell. Many years ago, I had quite a bit of correspondence with him.

I was thrilled to bits when he issued the Parker Dial recordings properly and completely at the end of the 1960s. Prior to that, I could only get some (and far from all of them) on "pirate" budget LPs with poor sound. As part of his work, he befriended Ross Russell.

And yes, Tony put out a lot of other valuable recordings, including Dexter Gordon's Dial items.

[Brad]

3 hours ago, mikeweil said:

That was the first LP he released!

Here's a list of releases: https://www.discogs.com/label/124617-Spotlite-Records

I have this one. Tremendous.

This one is also great.

[Chuck Nessa]

Back in the day I purchased Spotlite lps an eventually cds directly from him. Occasionally he'd put in a personal note. Sorry to hear of his disease and death.

[Gheorghe]

9 hours ago, mikeweil said:

That was the first LP he released!

Here's a list of releases: https://www.discogs.com/label/124617-Spotlite-Records

Those were the days. I also purchased this very soon after I started to learn something about bop. Though the 70´s was more electric jazz, this Spotlite somehow started. I first had thought that Tony Williams is THE drummer Tony Williams, since we all knew HIM and he was some kind of an idol. So it took me a long time to get to know that it is another Tony Williams, since I had thought Tony the drummer genius maybe found some time looking back to the roots and founded a lable as a kind of "hobby"....

But as I said, some of the guys who was a bit older than me, had not only Trane but had some Bird also, he was a kind of "James Dean" of jazz for them. And the Mingus composition Parkeriana....., so I really got somehow "hooked" on Diz, Bird and Bop in general. 
And some went´with me, the guy a went fishing with when we were in the boat we hummed all those Mr.B. tracks and the "Ernie Bubbles Whitman announcements of "thank youuuuuuuh". 

And another one was the "Afro Cuban" which you mentioned. 

Some others were hard to listen too, to bad sound quality, sometimes only a few fragments, like the "Gene Roland".... 
One of the musicians then, the young Nicolae Simion always asked me to spin Bird´s Appartment Sessions" especially "Little Willie Leaps". Mostly for studying the saxophone lines. Anyway, on the "Appartment" you don´t hear much of other musicians....., only for super super fans......

[mhatta]

RIP.  My personal favorite Spolite releases are:

• Invitation / Al Haig
• Proto-bopper / Joe Albany
• Hi Fly / Peter King
• Together / Billy Eckstine
• That's Earl, Brother / Earl Bostic