Jazz great’s striking voice still echoes

"He had no replicas, no imitators."

-- Singer Ruth Brown to the Review-Journal, upon the death of Joe Williams in 1999

Such a striking instrument -- hot-buttered voice, dipped in honey and tinged with a smoky sensuality -- echoes eternally, even if its owner has been silenced.

The man was a smooth swallow of brandy, and if Joe Williams bequeathed a legacy when he died nine years ago, it is that even in a world gone casual, the allure of elegance is everlasting.

Expect the bluesman's memory to be burnished anew on Sunday when the showroom at the South Point hosts the annual concert for the Joe Williams Music Scholarship Fund, benefiting College of Southern Nevada students.

"He reminds me of autumn. His voice is bronze and burnt sienna and golden, warm and enveloping."

-- Singer Cassandra Wilson to The New York Times

Once preoccupied by pop/rock in another lifetime, this writer, a one-time jazz-spaz, was irrevocably seduced by Williams' bottomless baritone on the albums of the Count Basie Band. It was the startling clarity and power of his voice that was like a cannon blast through my musical ignorance, and a lush wake-up call to the beauty of a lyric.

I'd heard the words from the midtempo swing standard "I'm Beginning to See the Light," but never saw the vivid images they painted, never felt the sensual electricity they suggested, until Williams sang, "I never made love by lantern-shine; I never saw rainbows in my wine; but now that your lips are burning mine; I'm beginning to see the light."

Finally, I saw it.

"It was the heart-and-soul jubilance invested in every performance he gave. Those who heard this most masculine of singers were uplifted by a warm, lusty bass-baritone. ... He was also known as one of the warmest, most engaging personalities in the entertainment world, totally lacking in affectations."

-- The Washington Post

Sung from the heart of a romantic innocent, "Teach Me Tonight" was, in the interpretations of other jazz crooners, a poetic prelude to the intrigues of love, sexy but straightforward. Williams' sly take found the playful irony of the lyrics, the winking promise that the student would school the teacher when he sang, "Did you say I've got a lot to learn; well don't think I'm trying not to learn; since this is the perfect spot to learn; teach me tonight." A master class in reverse seduction.

And to listen to him cradle the late-night melancholy of "Lush Life" was to hear a soul snap in two.

"He sang real soul blues on which his perfect enunciation of the words gave the blues a new dimension."

-- Duke Ellington in his autobiography, "Music Is My Mistress"

For this now-fervent fan, it was Williams' commanding pipes -- not Sinatra, not Bennett, not any of the iconic song stylists -- who lent swing standards their joyous sense of bebop pizzazz, from the cheerful refrain of romantic surrender when he sang, "Alright, OK, you win, I'm in love with you" to the syntax-mauling sweetness of "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby." And the man owned the tune that defined him, "Every Day I Have the Blues."

Thank you, Joe, for opening these ears to your singular artistry.

"When a man is holding a woman in his arms and something you sing causes them to hold each other a little closer, feel love for each other, feel their desire for each other and make a decision about how they're going to live the rest of their lives together because of it ... then they'll always look at you warmly together."

-- Joe Williams to The Washington Post

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0256.