CANCELED: Mars Williams

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Kelly Weime

Mars Williams

Nov. 6 update: Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Mars Williams show has been canceled.  Thank you for your understanding.

The longtime Psychedelic Furs saxophonist is a raging rock woodwind player. He cut his teeth on dixieland and then hard-core jazz. He studied under Roscoe Mitchell at Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. In addition to the Furs, he’s performed with Billy Idol, the Power Station and Ministry. These days he lives in the center of the Chicago improvisational jazz world and is sure to go exploring at this show, co-presented by BlueStem Jazz and Dark Star Art Bar at the Harmony.

media release: DARK STAR ART BAR AND BLUESTEM JAZZ PRESENTS: An evening with Mars Williams.

Performing with WILLIAMS will be Chicago cornetist and composer JOSH BERMAN as well as MIKEL PATRICK AVERY and JASON ROEBKE. This will be an evening of exceptional performances and is not to be missed!

Mars Williams is an American jazz and rock saxophonist. Exposed to big band and dixieland jazz by his trumpet-playing father, Williams played classical clarinet for ten years, then migrated to saxophone in his last year of high school, citing the influence of Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker. He attended De Paul University and later the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians where he studied under founders Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell. In 2004 he was selected by the Moers Festival as their featured artist.

Williams is a musician, orchestrator, and arranger who has played with The Waitresses and The Psychedelic Furs. He was only to tour with The Furs in Australia for a month in 1983 as then sax-player Gary Windo was unable to make the trip. After a successful tour with The Furs and the breakup of the Waitresses, he was asked to stay on as a permanent member of The Psychedelic Furs, which he did until 1989 and later rejoined in 2005. He has also performed with Billy Idol, the Power Station, Billy Squier, Massacre, Ministry, and Die Warzau and the Ike Reilly Assassination.

He has toured and recorded with the Peter Brötzmann Tentet, the Vandermark 5, Cinghiale, Our Daughter's Wedding, and Mark Freeland's Electroman, and is the bandleader of several spin-off jazz groups: Grammy Award nominated, acid jazz pioneer Liquid Soul, Hal Russell's NRG Ensemble, Witches & Devils, Slam, and XmarsX. He is active in the Chicago improvisational jazz underground scene both individually and as a member of the quartet Extraordinary Popular Delusions.

Tickets $20