Tony Williams Lifetime - Where Jazz Meets Rock

In February 1969 Miles Davis called his musicians into the studio to record “In A Silent Way“. Tony Williams brought along a young English guitarist to Miles's court, one who had recorded his debut album, “Extrapolation”, only a month before, and whom Williams had spotted at a gig playing with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. Davis immediately understood that John McLaughlin could be a key piece for the direction his music was taking, and called him back that summer for the “Bitches Brew“ sessions. Meanwhile Tony Williams had already decided to form his own band, Lifetime, and didn't hesitate to bring his guitarist friend along. From the “Bitches Brew” band he also recruited Larry Young, “because he was capable of taking the Hammond organ to another planet”, in Williams's own words. Thus was born the first power trio in the history of jazz-rock, anticipating by a few years all the other great fusion groups of the Seventies: Weather Report, Return To Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Headhunters.

Williams, Young and McLaughlin entered the studio in late May to record the Lifetime debut, Emergency!. Two days were enough to put together an incendiary double LP. Williams's compulsive drumming overwhelms both McLaughlin's guitar and Young's organ in the final mix. The structure is jazz but the drive is rock. The sounds are raw, even though the phrasing of the electric guitar reveals the elegance of young McLaughlin's technique. The biggest surprise of all is Larry Young, who pulls basslines, organ solos, wonderful riffs worthy of the Doors/Santana (like the one on the title track “Emergency!”) and an incredible universe of noise out of the Hammond.
On “Beyond Games” Tony Williams takes to singing, or rather speaking, while a jazz-funk groove goes chasing after space-rock trajectories. “Where” and “Spectrum” (transformed from the original version on “Extrapolation”), both written by John McLaughlin, lay the groundwork for the sound of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. “Vashkar” is a Carla Bley piece reinterpreted by Lifetime with that same taste that would remain the hallmark of fusion for the following ten years.
The album sold poorly and critics were divided too: Richard Cook, in the last Penguin Jazz Guide, remembered the record as “an ugly jumble of sounds”. Rolling Stone at the time, on the other hand, wrote that “Lifetime should become as famous as the Jimi Hendrix Experience”.

In February Lifetime were back in New York, ready to enter the studio. Williams, Young and McLaughlin were joined by Jack Bruce, who had already played with Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and Cream. The impetuousness of Emergency! is handled with greater awareness: the opener of (Turn It On), a cover of Chick Corea's “To Whom It May Concern”, is a textbook case, with Williams able to switch between slow hard-rock grooves and lightning-fast jazz runs, while McLaughlin on the left channel and Young on the right duet in an orgiastic dance that takes the Band Of Gypsies all the way to Saturn. The cover of Jobim's classic “Once A Loved” is psychedelic and visionary, as is the ballad written by Williams himself, “This Night This Song”. More in tune with Graham Bond's blues-jazz-psychedelic crossover is the reworking of John Coltrane's “Big Nick”, which closes side A.
Side B opens with the barely two minutes of “Right On”, a pure shot of rock adrenaline. The band's syncretic ability is also on full display across the exact five minutes of the explosive “Vuelta Abajo”, a condensed summary and, at the same time, a litmus test valid for both jazz-rock and the progressive rock that would flood the Seventies. Though the only group in the Eighties able to pick up the attitude of early Lifetime would be Last Exit, with Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann and Bill Laswell. The album closes in textbook fashion with Larry Young's psychedelic jazz-soul piece “Allah Be Praised”.

After a tour that took Lifetime around America and Europe, a seven-inch was released, “One Word”, which showcases Jack Bruce's voice (the same song, in an instrumental version, would later be picked up by John McLaughlin for his Mahavishnu Orchestra album “Birds Of Fire”). In early 1971 the band broke up. According to Bruce, it was the fault of Williams's manager; he remembers those years as “the most rewarding musical experience I ever had”.
Tony Williams wasted no time: by February he was already in the studio with a new lineup. Only a few weeks had passed since the old Lifetime's concerts, but musically the gap couldn't have been wider. Alongside Larry Young were guitarist Ted Dunbar, bassist Ron Carter and percussionists Don Alias and Warren Smith. It's precisely the sound of the percussion that defines the atmosphere of the new Lifetime (“Clap City”, “Piskow’s Filigree”, “Some Hip Drum Shit”). From night to day. A Copernican revolution. The rock of the first two albums had vanished from Lifetime's palette. Even Larry Young was less present, and would leave the band before the recording of the next album.

The Old Bum’s Rush is the last Lifetime album to be released by Polydor. Producer Ben Sidran gave the band a funky sound rich in keyboards and melodic hooks, light years away from the physical rock of the first two albums. Alongside Tony Williams were Herb Bushler on bass, David Horovitz on synthesizers, Webster Lewis on organ, Tillmon Williams on saxophone and Laura Tequila Logan on guitar. Logan sings on most of the tracklist, giving the album an unusually pop sheen (“What’cha Gonna Do Today”).

After a two-year break, Tony Williams put together a new Lifetime with a then-little-known English guitarist, Allan Holdsworth, bringing back Jack Bruce and keeping Lewis and Logan from the previous lineup. The quartet recorded an album, known as “Wildlife”, which was never released.
The following year yet another Lifetime lineup (with Tony Newton, Alan Pasqua and Allan Holdsworth) finally went into the studio to record two albums, Believe It and Million Dollar Legs, now considered milestones of the muscular, hard-hitting fusion of the second half of the Seventies.
The studio recordings, and above all the numerous concerts of those years, were a showcase for the talented Holdsworth, who forged a style still considered the standard of its kind today. This Lifetime lineup, too, didn't last long, and by the summer of 1978 Tony Williams was in Japan with Ronnie Montrose, Brian Auger, Mario Cipollina (Huey Lewis And The News) and Billy Cobham. That all-star lineup is documented on one track – “Open Music” – from the lackluster The Joy Of Flying, whose sessions also featured other big names such as Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, Tom Scott, Stanley Clarke, Michael Brecker, George Benson and Jan Hammer.

One final Lifetime lineup, with Patrick O’Hearn (formerly of Frank Zappa's band) on bass and Tom Grant on keyboards, recorded Play Or Die in 1980, an album that in some way tries to reclaim a jazz purity within fusion atmospheres. It is Lifetime's swan song.

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