Gene Williams
Gene Williams has one upcoming show in the Netherlands: on October 19, 2026 at Café 't Rozenknopje, Eindhoven.
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About
Gene Williams was a baritone jazz singer who ran his own big band at a time when plenty of vocalists were happy just to front someone else's. He started out with the Duke Ambassadors, sang with Johnny Long's orchestra during his army years (you can spot him in the 1943 film Hit the Ice), and after the war worked with Vincent Lopez, Les Elgart, George Paxton and Bobby Sherwood. In 1947 he sang on Sorta Kinda with the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. In 1949 he launched Gene Williams and the Junior Thornhill Band in New York, later shortened to the Gene Williams Orchestra. The lineup was seriously good: Stan Getz sat in the ranks, and Gil Evans and Chico O'Farrill wrote arrangements. The band played college campuses, landed a 1952 stint at the Glen Island Casino and recorded for Mercury Records. He wound the orchestra down in the late 1950s but kept singing with jazz combos.
