Guest trumpeter Woody Shaw adds a brilliant solo to the moody masterpiece. The title track is mesmerizing with a winding vocal-led melody over a bed of percussion and lush keys, including Gumbs’s ARP String Ensemble synth. Williams next launched into his “Noble Ego” with an emphatic bass solo before establishing an intense groove for the incantations of jazz vocalist Suzanne Klewan and “Marcus” (an alias for Jon Lucien, who already had a hit song with “ Rashida”). Franco’s fascinating percussive touches are all over, as are Fortune’s screaming soprano sax and Turbinton’s bubbling bass clarinet. The recording begins with the album’s most recognized track, Williams’s “The Hump.” Reaching for a more commercial sound, Williams laid down a funky Fender electric bass over the tune’s odd meter with Gumbs providing a spacey vibe with Rhodes and Moog. And for percussion, Williams nabbed Brazilian Guilherme Franco, who had become a regular in jazz sessions around New York, where he brought an incredible assortment of sounds and textures. For keys and synth, Williams turned to Onaje Allan Gumbs, a keyboard wizard who Williams first heard when Gumbs presented a program of compositions inspired by the Zodiac before a Mwandishi gig in Gumbs’s native Buffalo, New York. As Williams was looking for a bass clarinetist for the group, Hart recommended New Orleans woodwind legend Earl Turbinton, based on the latter’s work with Joe Zawinul. Mwandishi bandmate “Jabali” Billy Hart took the drum chair and Philly saxophonist Sonny Fortune led the horns. The core of the ensemble put together for the August 1975 recording sessions at Blue Rock Studios in New York City comprised old friends and collaborators. He also became de facto producer (and liner note writer) for Pinnacle. Meadow’s efforts were scattershot but occasionally provided gigs and opportunities, including ironing out the Pinnacle sessions. Meadow moved to New York and quickly became involved in the industry as a freelance writer and manager for a handful of artists, including Williams. Williams’s manager at the time was Elliot Meadow, a young Scottish jazz enthusiast whom Williams met in France in 1963, at the Nice Jazz Festival. With Williams’s reputation on the rise, Fields committed to recording the bassist’s debut as leader. But having appeared on albums by Philadelphians Carl and Earl Grubbs’s the Visitors and by saxophonists Eric Kloss and Carlos Garnett, both on jazz’s mega indie Muse Records, Williams got to know the label’s owner, Joe Fields. He focused on playing with his heroes and ensuring the longevity of his career, being stalwart and strong in the background rather than seeking the spotlight. But Williams tended to let opportunities develop on their own. The other members of the Mwandishi band found outlets for their own projects quickly, capitalizing on the group’s growing influence. But it was his association with Hancock that cemented Williams’s name in the contemporary jazz scene, as he became part of the keyboardist’s legendary Mwandishi ensemble, stoking the group’s experimental jazz-fusion fire under his nom de guerre, Mchezaji, a Swahili word meaning “player.” The name was appropriate and altogether in keeping with Williams’s modest nature that was nurtured by his practice of Nichiren Buddhism. Williams moved to New York City in 1968 and became a regular first call bassist for dozens of bands. It was in California that Williams met the musician who would be a major influence in the next phase of his musical life-Herbie Hancock, who was at the end of his tenure with the Miles Davis Quintet in 1967. Backing up big name vocalists like Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson led Buster to the West Coast, where he hooked up with Joe Sample, Wilton Felder, and Stix Hooper’s Jazz Crusaders. His father, Charles Williams Sr., was a renowned bassist who became his son’s biggest influence, eventually passing gigs on to Buster in the late 1950s, which led to Buster’s first tour with saxophonist Gene Ammons. And so it was for Buster Williams, the steady-handed bassist who had spent nearly two decades touring and recording with a murderers’ row of legendary leaders before waxing his own album as a leader, Pinnacle, in 1975.īorn in Camden, New Jersey, Williams was raised amid the rich Philadelphia jazz scene, just across the Delaware River. It seemed every musician found an opportunity to release a personal project during the ’70s. Major labels continued to back boundary-pushing music, and independent and artist-run labels filled every record bin with an astounding assortment of jazz from the traditional to farthest of the out. Take a moment to consider the incredible diversity and volume of jazz music that came out in the 1970s.
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