The Tony Williams Lifetime was the drummer’s own band after the Miles Davis years: a loud organ trio that recorded its first album in May 1969 and helped set jazz fusion in motion. Over seven years and two incarnations it passed through John McLaughlin, Jack Bruce and Allan Holdsworth.

The short version

Tony Williams, born in Chicago and raised in Boston, joined Miles Davis at seventeen in the group later known as the Second Great Quintet, next to Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter. In 1969 he started Lifetime as a power trio with the English guitarist John McLaughlin and the organist Larry Young. Their double album “Emergency!” came out on Polydor in September 1969, and three more Polydor albums followed: “Turn It Over” (1970), with Jack Bruce on bass, “Ego” (1971) and “The Old Bum’s Rush” (1972). In 1975 Williams relaunched the name as The New Tony Williams Lifetime, a quartet with Allan Holdsworth on guitar, and made “Believe It” (1975) and “Million Dollar Legs” (1976) for Columbia.

Emergency! and the first trio

“Emergency!” was recorded on 26 and 28 May 1969 and produced by Monte Kay and Jack Lewis, with liner notes by Ralph J. Gleason. It is a double album of long pieces, from the title track “Emergency” to “Sangria for Three”, which runs past thirteen minutes, plus Carla Bley’s “Vashkar”; Williams sings on it as well as drumming. Much of the jazz audience rejected it at the time because of its heavy rock side, and it is now regarded as a fusion classic. AllMusic’s Leo Stanley wrote that it “shattered the boundaries between jazz and rock”, Mojo likened it to a jazz-rock “Are You Experienced?”, and the critic J. D. Considine credited it with starting jazz fusion. The members of the Allman Brothers Band are reported to have listened to it often early in their career, and Andy Partridge of XTC has called it his favourite album of all time.

For “Turn It Over”, recorded in New York in July 1970 and released that December, the trio became a quartet with Jack Bruce, formerly of Cream, on bass. The record opens with two pieces by Chick Corea and includes John Coltrane’s “Big Nick”; McLaughlin’s “One Word”, with Bruce singing, first appeared on a UK single. Vibe’s Greg Tate called it one of the most violent and raucous records ever made by a noted jazz musician, and The Guardian’s John Fordham heard it as tougher than the debut.

New faces, then a new Lifetime

By “Ego”, recorded at RCA Studio B in New York in February and March 1971, McLaughlin had gone. Ted Dunbar played guitar, Larry Young stayed on organ, Ron Carter, Williams’s old colleague from the Davis quintet, played bass and cello, and Warren Smith and Don Alias added percussion; Jack Bruce returned to sing on “Two Worlds”. “The Old Bum’s Rush” changed the band again, with Linda “Tequila” Logan on vocals and guitar, Webster Lewis on organ and clavinet, David Horowitz on piano, vibraphone and ARP synthesizer, Herb Bushler on bass and Tillmon Williams as guest on tenor saxophone. It was recorded at Intermedia Sound in Boston and produced by Ben Sidran, and it closes with the ten-minute title track. The German Polydor pressing is dated 1972, the American edition January 1973, which is why the album appears under both years.

The New Tony Williams Lifetime was a different kind of band: Williams with Allan Holdsworth on guitar, Alan Pasqua on keyboards and Tony Newton on bass, all four writing. “Believe It”, recorded in July 1975 and produced by Bruce Botnick, holds Holdsworth’s “Fred” and “Mr Spock” and Newton’s “Snake Oil”. “Million Dollar Legs” followed, recorded in June 1976 at Caribou Ranch in Colorado, again with Botnick, and with string and horn arrangements by Jack Nitzsche. John Swenson, in The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide, called the two albums funk fusion delights and singled out Holdsworth’s playing.

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Album by album

Six studio albums, from 1969 to 1976: four by Lifetime on Polydor and two by The New Tony Williams Lifetime on Columbia, all with a guide on this site. “The Joy of Flying”, a Tony Williams solo record, and later archive releases stay outside the grid. Tap any title for its guide.

The players

Tony Williams, on drums and vocals, was the only constant. The first line-up of 1969 was the trio with John McLaughlin and Larry Young, and Jack Bruce joined on bass and vocals in 1970. On “Ego” (1971) Ted Dunbar replaced McLaughlin, with Ron Carter, Warren Smith and Don Alias. The 1972 line-up of “The Old Bum’s Rush” was Logan, Lewis, Horowitz and Bushler. From 1975 the New Lifetime quartet was Williams, Allan Holdsworth, Alan Pasqua and Tony Newton; after “Million Dollar Legs” Holdsworth left and was replaced on guitar by Larry Herzberg and then Marlon Graves. Williams also reunited with his old Davis colleagues in V.S.O.P. from 1976.

Where to start

I would start with “Emergency!” (1969), the trio album critics credit with starting jazz fusion. Then go to “Turn It Over” (1970), the record with Jack Bruce and the Coltrane cover “Big Nick”. For the later band, “Believe It” (1975) is where Allan Holdsworth joins, writing two of its six original tracks.

Why they matter

Lifetime links several of the fusion bands on this site. By mid-1971 John McLaughlin had played with Miles Davis and with Lifetime, and in New York that year he formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Williams’s Davis bandmate Wayne Shorter went on to co-found Weather Report. The second Lifetime featured Allan Holdsworth, who also played on Soft Machine’s “Bundles” (1975) and went on to Bruford and UK. I follow those threads on my Jazz Rock & Fusion page.

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