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Very sad to hear about Williams' passing. Williams played a 12 hour marathon concert on his 86th birthday (just one year ago) at the Musical Instrument Museum here in Phoenix. I was among the 2000 folks who turned out that day to hear him. He truly was amazing. He performed in the atrium - on a Steinway that was built by S&S especially for him. He was still in top form...and yes, he performed Autumn Leaves !!

Just listened to Williams play Autumn Leaves. It is an outstanding recording. Like so many of you, I've heard it many times over the years.

Then, I go to Wikipedia and read about his life. You might want to do the same.

Surprised to find he did quite a bit of boxing during the earlier years. Piano and boxing--a rare combination.

Bech

Yes -- I was very sorry to hear it.
BTW this was posted right away on Non-Classical by Marvelle and I did a couple of replies there.

But not unique.

Cannot say I had heard of him before (sorry, different generation), but I think this rather cool:



He had a good technique.

I admired very much some of his piano stylings, arrangements which suited my youthful persona much more than they suit my adult - I won't say "mature" - tastes.

When his version of "Autumn Leaves" was published in sheet music form, I rushed out to buy it, and I had a couple of his LPs as well.

Thank you, Roger!

Regards,

Yes, sad to know that he has gone. I was a student at Ole Miss and he was appearing in Memphis. Several of us drove up to hear him and were quite impressed with his performance. He did perform Autumn Leaves as that had become his signature piece and I had made my own version (by ear) of it tho it was not that close an emulation. He was a wonderful pianist and a great showman as well.