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Ben Williams

Benjamin James Williams is a native of Washington, DC. He also performs on electric bass and piano as well. His musical influence is rooted in various genres of music including jazz, hip-hop, R&B, gospel, and classical. Ben is a recent graduate of the Michigan State University School of Music where he majored in Music Education with an emphasis in Jazz, studying with Rodney Whitaker and Jack Budrow. He plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Jazz Studies at the Juilliard School. Ben has won several competitions and scholarship awards. He is a two-time winner of the Fish Middleton Jazz Scholarship Competition at the East Coast Jazz Festival; a two-time winner of the DC Public School Piano Competition; a 2002 recipient of the Duke Ellington Society Annual Scholarship Award. Most recently, Ben won first place in the 2005 International Society of Bassists (ISB) competition in the category of jazz. Ben has performed both nationally and internationally with such artists as Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Mulgrew Miller, Cyrus Chestnut, Ron Blake, Stefon Harris, Karreim Riggins, Hamiett Bluiette, James Williams, Bobby Watson, Winard Harper, Buster Williams, John Hicks, Anthony Wonsey, Me’Shelle N’degeocello, Gene Lake, Wycliffe Gordon, and Delfeayo Marsalis to name a few. He has also performed with opening acts for artists such as John Legend, Kirk Franklin, and Eric Roberson.

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Liner Notes

Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors: The Meeting

Read "Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors: The Meeting" reviewed by Howard Mandel


How far must a reeds virtuoso from Bashkiria--a town in the Ural Mountains, southeast of Moscow towards Mongolia--and a pianist-composer-educator from southern Illinois, now living in Philadelphia, have to go to get together? Not very, based on the music Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors arrive at on The Meeting. Simply to a shared sense of joy in swinging rhythms, warm, rich harmonies and singable songs. In their second co-led album Kireyev and Javors offer more delightful proof that ...

Album Review

Bouvier: Blachant

Read "Blachant" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dai consigli d'amministrazione alla sala d'incisione. L'antropologa e urban designer Jackie “Bouvier" Copeland è stata riconosciuta di recente tra i massimi leader filantropici del mondo ed è impegnata in varie iniziative internazionali di sostegno umanitario. Ha fondato il programma “Black Philanthropy Month," la rete di filantropia femminile “Reunity" ed è dirigente di “The Women Invested to Save Earth Fund." Questo debutto discografico, prodotto dal bassista Ben Williams, s'inscrive in quest'attività, presentandosi come una profonda riflessione (anche spirituale) sui ...

14
Album Review

Dewa Budjana: Naurora

Read "Naurora" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Balinese guitarist Dewa Budjana's seventh album on Moonjune Records, Naurora, reveals--for those who have not heard him--a musician of seemingly unlimited talent and an artist in possession of an expansive vision. He has been called a “progressive fusion maestro" and, if he has to be labeled, that description feels right. Leading off with this disc's eleven-minute title tune, Budjana--who composed, arranged and produced the music here--lays down huge, rich soundscapes in the company of a bunch of forward-looking allstars, including ...

Album Review

Alicia Olatuja: Intuition: Songs From The Minds Of Women

Read "Intuition: Songs From The Minds Of Women" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


È un tributo alla creatività delle donne in generale e delle cantautrici in particolare, questo di Alicia Olatuja, che interpreta composizioni di Tracy Chapman, Joni Mitchell, Violeta Parra, Sade Adu, Kate Bush e altre. Alicia ne aggiunge di proprie e partecipa come arrangiatrice in un progetto fortemente sentito e condiviso col produttore Kamau Kenyatta, noto per il suo ruolo nel successo di Gregory Porter, e con Ulysses Owens Jr. Alicia Olatuja è una versatile mezzosoprano, maturata ...

17
Album Review

Jazzmeia Horn: Love & Liberation

Read "Love & Liberation" reviewed by Ian Patterson


It's a big step for any singer, the move from interpreter of jazz standards to songwriter. And when you've been Grammy-nominated for a debut album of covers, as Jazzmeia Horn was with A Social Call (Prestige, 2017), the temptation must be to carry on in the same vein. Horn, however, clearly has greater ambition, as the eight originals on her follow-up attest. Not that she's thrown the baby out with the bathwater, for swing, blues, bebop, gospel and thrilling vocal ...

4
Live Review

Ben Williams at Hamilton Live

Read "Ben Williams at Hamilton Live" reviewed by Wendy Ross


Ben Williams Hamilton Live Ben Williams Birthday BashWashington D.C. December 27, 2018 Hamilton Live is a trendy performance venue located below The Hamilton restaurant in Washington, DC, mere blocks from the White House. It was the holiday season between Christmas and the New Year, an appropriately festive time for a birthday party. The man of the hour, bassist Ben Williams, was throwing his annual birthday bash and it was so intimate ...

13
Album Review

Oleg Kireyev & Keith Javors: The Meeting

Read "The Meeting" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Performing together since 2007, Russian saxophonist Oleg Kireyev and Philadelphia-based pianist Keith Javors formed a solid quartet they eventually led to the studio for their debut album Rhyme & Reason (Inarhyme Records, 2010). The Meeting is their follow up recording with a program of four originals and three re-imagined tunes from The Great American Songbook delivered in a tasteful post-bop style. Interestingly enough, it was Kireyev who discovered Javors while surfing the internet and cemented their friendship while ...

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38

Recording

Nonesuch Releases New Pat Metheny "Unity Band" Record, June 12; Saxophonist Chris Potter, Drummer Antonio Sanchez, and Bassist Ben Williams Join Guitarist Metheny

Nonesuch Releases New Pat Metheny "Unity Band" Record, June 12; Saxophonist Chris Potter, Drummer Antonio Sanchez, and Bassist Ben Williams Join Guitarist Metheny

Source: Michael Ricci

First Metheny-led band in 30 years to feature sax also embarks on 39-city summer & fall tour For the first time since his 1980 release 80/81, guitarist Pat Metheny has recorded with a band that features tenor saxophone. Unity Band, due from Nonesuch on June 12, 2012, introduces a new Metheny ensemble with Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums, and the up-and-coming Ben Williams on bass. The album features nine new Metheny compositions. ...

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Event

NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston And The 2009 Thelonious Monk International Bass Competition Winner Ben Williams To Perform At Annual CBCF Jazz Concert On September 22nd

NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston And The 2009 Thelonious Monk International Bass Competition Winner Ben Williams To Perform At Annual CBCF Jazz Concert On September 22nd

Source: AAJ Staff

Washington, DC: Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, will once again serve as the Honorary Host Jazz Issue Forum and Concert that will take place during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc.'s 41st Annual Legislative Conference, September 21 -24, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (WCC), 801 Mount Vernon Place, NW, Washington, DC 20001. The Jazz Issue Forum, entitled “The Legacy of Modern Jazz Masters and ...

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Performance / Tour

Ben Williams and Sound Effect to Play May 22 in Saratoga Springs, NT

Ben Williams and Sound Effect  to Play May 22 in Saratoga Springs, NT

Source: Michael Ricci


Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Blachant

Self Produced
2024

buy

Seamless

Self Produced
2023

buy

Same Moon in the Same...

Outside in Music
2022

buy

Naurora

MoonJune Records
2021

buy

Love & Liberation

Concord Jazz
2019

buy

Intuition: Songs From...

Resilience Music
2018

buy

Time (Reprise) ft. Marcus Gilmore

From: Seamless
By Ben Williams

Haven't Meta Yet

From: Same Moon in the Same World
By Ben Williams

Similar

Led Zeppelin
band / ensemble / orchestra
Dave Morgan
bass, acoustic

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