BERNIE WILLIAMS: All-Star Sessions
BY JASON KORANSKY

October 2003


Thinking about the musicians with whom he played on the sessions for his debut album, The Journey Within, Bernie Williams lets out a laugh.

“The biggest challenge was to bring my skill level up to their skill level,” the guitarist says, remembering with awe the making of his firstalbum, released this past summer on GRP. “I had the musical ideas in my head, and of course they were going to be able to execute them. But I’m a baseball player! And you have to have your chops right to play with those cats.”

Those cats included singer Ruben Blades, keyboardist David Sancious and David Benoit, bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Kenny Aronoff, percussionist Luis Conre, banjoist Bela Fleck and saxophonist Mark Rivera. It was definitely an all-star studio configuration and not all-stars like Giambi. Soriano and Clemens, the cats Williams runs with on a nightly basis as the centerfielder for the New York Yankees.

So Williams openly admits that he’s a baseball player first. But he has a lifelong relationship with music, is classically trained, has melodic sensibility and can really play the guitar. So dismissing The Journey Within as a novelty falls short of recognizing the value of the album. It’s a culmination of a lifelong pursuit of music, and it will definitely catch the ears of contemporary jazz listeners. And in a time when instrumental music and jazz are losing listeners, the exposure that as international sports superstar like Williams can bring to the music is invaluable.

Born in Puerto Rico, Williams was obviously immersed in salsa. This is evident on the album’s opening track, “La Salsa En Mi”-one of the seven songs on the album he wrote and a source of pride. “It was an idea I had for five or six years,” he says. “The song is a tribute to the salsa that I grew up listening to in Puerto Rico. I brought all the other musical influences I had into this song, over the salsa rhythms, and I made something with the rhythm that explained the way I see salsa.

Another one of the album’s highlights comes when Williams is alone with his guitar on Barden Powell’s “Samba Novo.” Here, it’s clearly evident that Williams had legitimate classical chops on the acoustic guitar. “When I was in high school, I was exposed to a lot of [Heitor] Villa-Lobos’ and Baden Powell’s music,” he says. “Samba Novo is a song I sued to study in Puerto Rico.”

Williams went to a music high school in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and while growing up he was much more serious about music than baseball. But at the end of high school he was drafted by the Yankees, and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make it to the big leagues. His talents on the field blossomed to his current all-star caliber, but he never gave up the guitar. He always has one on the road with him during the baseball season, and in the off-season, he works on his music as much as his batting.

“I’m really into Pat Methane,” Williams, 34, says. “A guy who was teaching me in Puerto Rico in the off season introduced me to the music of Allan Holdsworth, Mike Stern, Scott Henderson, guys like that. They play electric guitar in a style that’s not classical, but it’s just as hard. I have a real appreciation of fusion.”

Does his success in baseball and music have a correlation? “Guitar and baseball have similarities on many different levels,” Williams says. “Both take an enormous amount of discipline to bring your skills to the highest level. When you come to bat in baseball, there’s no do-overs. Once you take that at-bat, that’s it. When you play music in a live setting, you have to be the same way. You don’t have a second opportunity to make an impression. Also, with both, you want the respect of your peers.”

Admiration is no problem for Williams. With the Major League Baseball All-Star game in Chicago in July, Williams rented out the House of Blue for a record release party. Joining him on stage to play the cuts on the record were the like of Blades, Contes, Sancious, Sklar, and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta.

But the big surprise of the evening came when the curtains opened for the show. Standing alone on stage was former New York City mayor and diehard Yankees fan Rudy Giuliani to introduce and interview him. “I used to be a prosecutor, so you better watch what you say,” Giuliani joked.

Now, having Giuliani interview you – that’s respect.

DOWNBEAT Magazine