Richard Williams (musician)
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Richard Gene Williams (May 4, 1931 – November 5, 1985) was an American jazz trumpeter.
Williams was born in Galveston, Texas, and played tenor saxophone early in his life before picking up trumpet as a teenager. He played in local Texas bands and attended Wiley College, where he majored in music. After some time serving in the Air Force he toured Europe with Lionel Hampton, and upon his return took a master's defree at the Manhattan School of Music.
Williams played with Charles Mingus at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1959, and recorded with Mingus starting in that year. He recorded his only session as a leader, New Horn in Town, in 1960, released on Candid Records, and featuring Reggie Workman, Leo Wright, Richard Wyands, and Bobby Thomas. Williams was a sideman on a large number of releases for Blue Note, Impulse!, New Jazz, Riverside, and Atlantic in the 1960s. Among the musicians he worked with are Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Grant Green, Lou Donaldson, Yusef Lateef, Gigi Gryce, Duke Jordan, Noah Howard, and the big bands of Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, and Thad Jones and Mel Lewis.
He also found work on Broadway in pit orchestras. He appears on the 1975 recording of the musical The Wiz. Late in his career he joined Mingus Dynasty.
