JAZZ / DIRK SUTRO : Drummer Tony Williams Sticks With Raw Talent

Drummer Tony Williams is living proof that you don’t have to forsake melodies or a beat to make a new musical statement.

Williams, who plays the City College Theater with his acoustic quintet at 8 p.m. Monday in a show co-presented by KSDS-FM (88.3) and the San Diego Jazz Festival, uses his raw talent to create within the limits of straight-ahead jazz.

A child prodigy who was playing drums in Boston clubs with his saxophonist father before his teens, Williams went to New York to join Jackie McLean’s band when he was only 16. With bassist Ron Carter and pianist Herbie Hancock, Williams completed the rhythm section that propelled trumpeter Miles Davis through such seminal ‘60s albums as “In a Silent Way,” “Miles in the Sky” and “Miles Smiles,” albums that marked the birth of the rock/jazz marriage known today as fusion.

But it was when he left Davis in the late ‘60s that Williams began to find himself, melding elements of jazz and rock in a band called Tony Williams Lifetime with guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young.

Williams’ current band, together since 1985, is loaded with talent: pianist Mulgrew Miller, trumpeter Wallace Roney, sax man Billy Pierce and bassists Bob Hurst and Ira Coleman. Miller has been getting praise for his own debut solo album.

With this band, Williams seems to have found an ideal setting. The music, composed by Williams, is powered by his crisp stick work: rapidly shifting layers of rhythms coming from carefully tuned drums that almost give his playing a melodic quality. His crisp rolls and deft cymbal work have become a trademark.

The drummer won’t say much about the group, which recently released “Angel Street,” its third album.

“I’ve never had a band like this before. I like trying things that haven’t been tried. . . . The music? I can’t put it into words. If you could explain music, you wouldn’t need music.”

San Diego marks the halfway point on the band’s six-week tour of the United States and Canada. In August, they’ll be playing jazz festivals in Japan. Tickets for the San Diego show are $12 ($14 at the door), available at all Ticketmaster locations or from the KSDS studios (234-1062).

The show is the first of what KSDS and the Jazz Festival hope will be a series of jointly presented summer jazz concerts. Williams will be interviewed on KSDS at 3 p.m. Monday.

Pianist Henry Butler, who opened a three-week gig at Elario’s last night, has most often been likened to pianist McCoy Tyner. But any similarities in their percussive attacks are more coincidence than the result of direct influences, Butler said.

Truth is, Butler’s aggressive approach developed quite independently. He began his musical career as a grammar school drummer, which instilled strong rhythms, and he grew up in New Orleans, “which probably has more good drummers than any city its size in this country,” he said. ‘With that kind of environment, one almost had to be percussive.”

Butler counts pianist Keith Jarrett and saxophone giant John Coltrane among his influences. He has many talents beyond the piano: Besides singing and composing, he also takes pictures, all the more impressive because Butler is blind. “A moron can take a picture,” he said. “A dog can do it if he knows which button to choose with his paw.” Butler’s photos, though, aren’t dogs. They’ve been shown around the country to favorable reviews.

In La Jolla, he’ll be backed by San Diegans Jim Plank on drums and Bob Magnusson on bass.

Friday night at the Centro Cultural in Tijuana, two groups of Southern California musicians will present “Homenaje a Charlie Parker,” a memorial to the pioneering bebopper. One band includes local sax man Charles McPherson, one-time L.A. Express drummer John Guerin, pianist Frank Strazzeri and trumpeter Chuck Findley. The other consists of pianist Mel Goot, drummer Carlos Vasquez, percussionist Armando Rosas, bassist Bill Andrews, Mexican saxophone player Esteban Favela, San Diegan Bruce Cameron on trumpet and possibly Coral Thuet on vocals. Consider the event an early birthday party: Parker was born Aug. 29, 1920.

Guitarists Al DiMeola and Larry Coryell electrified listeners with their fusion work in the ‘70s, DiMeola with Chick Corea in Return to Forever, Coryell leading his own bands, including The Eleventh House. Both are also prodigious talents on acoustic guitar. On June 21, they join hot young French guitarist Birelli Lagrene in a “Super Guitar Trio” at the Bacchanal.

RIFFS: Animal Logic, the band put together by bassist Stanley Clarke and former Police drummer Stewart Copeland, hits the Bacchanal on Monday. . . . KSWV-FM (102.9), which, with the help of disc jockey Art Good (formerly of KIFM), stole the Catamaran’s Cannibal Bar away from KIFM’s Lites Out circuit for its own Jazz Nite, has added a second club to its promotional lineup: the Full Moon in Encinitas, which holds its “Moonlight Jazz” nights every Sunday. This week, the club features the Mark Lessman Band. The Wave thus beats KIFM to the punch with a club promotion in North County, ripe territory for light-jazz lovers. . . . Spencer Nilsen, whose “Architects of Change” album is a mainstay of local contemporary jazz stations, is considering recording an extended dance version of “Church on Wall St.” from the album. . . . New Age band Shadowfax, which claims to have used more than 150 instruments from all over the world on its new album, “Folk Songs for a Nuclear Village,” plays the Del Mar Fair at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.