Steve Williamson
b. 1964, London, England. This tenor saxophonist has never received the media attention that near-contemporary colleague Courtney Pine has had and, as a very shy person, has never sought it. This may well have been to Williamson's advantage, since it meant he could develop at his own pace and on his own terms. It also meant, on the minus side, that he did not issue an album under his own name until 1990, but when the opportunity came he was in a position to make demands, such as that the album should be cut in New York—Steve Coleman produced the album and Abbey Lincoln was guest vocalist on the title track. Williamson is a mature and versatile player who convinces whether playing turbo-charged hard bop (such as at the Wembley Nelson Mandela 70th birthday concert where, accompanying dancers IDJ, he and Pine reached their biggest-ever audience), in a free jam, locking horns with the likes of Evan Parker in Joe Gallivan's New Soldiers Of The Road, or contributing to the glorious exuberance of Louis Moholo's Viva La Black. He played for a week with Art Blakey at Ronnie Scott's club, and produced some of his finest work on a 1989 four track demo disc with Wayne Batchelor's Quartet which, sadly, is currently not publicly available. His first saxophone was an alto, but he switched to tenor after hearing John Coltrane. On occasions he also plays soprano. Of the many talented young black musicians to emerge from the London jazz scene in the late '80s, Williamson looks set to prove one of the most original and durable.