Marc “Mars” Williams (5/29/55-11/20/2023) has enjoyed a career spanning a myriad of free from jazz projects to being an integral part of the rock music idiom as a member of The Waitresses and Psychedelic Furs. He was also an integral part of Chicago’s jazz and alternative music cultures where you could find him anywhere from the Green Mill to the Beat Kitchen. “In the niche realm of experimental free jazz, Willaims was a musicians’ musician,” noted Hannah Edgar in a Chicago Tribune story.
Williams grew up in near west suburban Franklin Park, inheriting the nickname “Mars” from his little brother who had difficulty pronouncing his name. A star clarinetist in his school music program, he would qualify to participate in a national honors ensemble.
Instead spending his summer in a local horn-rock cover band Paragon with the likes of Earth Wind and Fire’s Rahmlee Michael Davis and enrolling in the DePaul University music program.
The pedantic nature of the DePaul program was not a fit for Williams, who instead, through the likes of Davis and others, discovered the music of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), diving headfirst into their avant-garde structures and spiritual purpose.
In the late ‘70s, Williams would become a core member of multi-instrumentalist Hal Russell’s NRG ensemble along with guitarist/trumpeter Brian Sandstrom, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Steve Hunt. It’s been said, “their music kept free jazz alive in Chicago throughout the 1980’s, when it had largely disappeared from the jazz landscape,” in a piece in the Chicago Reader. Even though, as you read further, Williams went on to tour internationally with rock bands, he would return to NRG carrying on the torch beyond Russell’s death in 1992.
In the early ‘80s Williams headed to New York City. It was there he met saxophonist Ornette Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry, both who had become heroes he had discovered from his AACM studies, and renowned improvisation composer/saxophonist John Zorn, as he explored the fringes of the experimental jazz scene in the city.
At the same time Williams would be scoping out the rock scene, playing punk shows at clubs like CBGB. He would start getting gigs.
Williams would meet guitarist/songwriter Chris Butler who has just inked a deal with Ze Records on the basis of his song “I Know What Boys Like.” The problem for Butler was he didn’t have a band. With the deal in place, Butler would put together The Waitresses with Williams, vocalist Patty Donahue, former Television drummer Bill Ficca, keyboardist Dan Klayman and bassist Dave Hofstra. They played their debut concert on New Year’s Ever 1980. “I Know What Boys Like” went on to become a Billboard Top 100 hit but after two albums and a revolving door of personnel, the band broke up in 1983.
That opened the door for Williams to become a touring member of the lead singer Richard Butler’s Psychedelic Furs, who had established themselves as part of the British post-punk scene. Williams would enjoy a run with them from 1983-89, the period of their biggest hits “Pretty in Pink” and “Heartbreak Beat.”
But touring took its toll. The prevalence of drugs and drinking during the days of constant touring consumed Williams. He left the road returning to Chicago to sober up. It was not long after the Psychedelic Furs would go on hiatus, but when they returned in 2005, Williams rejoined them and has been with them ever since.
Back in Chicago, Williams could be found hanging out and playing at the city’s North Side alternative music clubs such as the Elbo Room and Double Door. It was there in 1995 he would form the acid jazz band Liquid Soul, who would enjoy long-term residences at both venues. “His rap-meets-jazz-meets-funk group Liquid Soul surfed the acid jazz crest of the ‘90s to Grammy acclaim; the band played President Bill Clinton’s second inauguration and became a favorite of the Chicago Bulls,” noted Hannah Edgar in her Chicago Tribune piece. Over the next decade they would release a half dozen albums including the Grammy nominated Here’s the Deal in 2000.
20 years ago, Williams was once again felled by pain-dulling opioids after a car accident. After a successful rehab, he has never seemed to put his instruments down. Always in search of a new musical form of experimentation, of expression, of enjoyment; Williams could always be found somewhere in Chicago teaming with numerous musical comrades. There were any number of projects with saxophonist/clarinetist Ken Vandermark with Audio One, the Vandermark 5, the Chicago Reed Quartet and Cinghiale; Boneshaker and Chemical Feast collaborations with NRG cohorts; albums with drummer Tim Daisy; Hornithology with Dave Rempis; his Extraordinary Popular Delusion project; works with Harrison Bankhead, Keefe Jackson and Paul Giallorenzo; Sonic Soul Sirkus, combining “wide-swinging jazz, hip-hop beats, aerial acrobats, and, per his website, ‘a performing bull’; XMARSX, Williams teaming with MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer and his annual Ayler Xmas events.
Earlier this year Williams was diagnosed with ampullary cancer affecting his small intestine and bile duct. He would begin chemo and rounds or radiation treatment, refusing to take the pain killers that he was once before addicted to. As those treatments were unsuccessful, like his experimental music explorations, Williams sought out alternative therapies. Through all that, he continued to perform. He toured with the Furs, so worn out he returned home in a wheelchair. He performed in October at the May Chapel to celebrate his most recent release of Two or Three (Amalgam), a tribute to the late composer Pauline Oliveros he had completed with Katinka Kleign and Robert Kassinger of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Music couldn’t stop him. Sadly, life did.
Mars Williams discography
Hal Russell NRG Ensemble
1981 Hal Russell NRG Ensemble (Nessa 21)
1984 Conserving NRG (Principally Jazz 02)
1994 Calling All Mothers (Quinnah 05)
1995 Hal on Earth (Abduction 1005)
1996 This is My House (Delmark 485)
1997 Bejazzo Gets a Facelift (Atavistic 73)
The Waitresses
1982 Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful? (Polydor 6346)
1983 Bruiseology (Polydor 6367)
Psychedelic Furs
1986 Midnight to Midnight (CBS 450256)
2020 Made of Rain (Cooking Vinyl 762)
Liquid Soul
1995 Liquid Soul (Soul What 0000 / Ark 21 10054)
1998 Make Some Noise (Ark 21 10021)
2000 Here’s the Deal (Shanachie 5065)
2002 Evolution (Shanachie 5095)
2006 One-Two Punch (Telarc 83633)
Cinghiale (with Ken Vandermark)
1996 Hoofbeats of the Snorting Swine (Eighth Day Music 80001)
Vandermark 5
1997 Single Piece Flow (Atavistic 47)
1997 Every Tuesday at the Empty Bottle (Savage Sound)
1998 Target or Flat (Atavistic 106)
1999 Simpatico (Atavistic 107)
Deep
1997 Mobile (Thickface 001)
Hal Russell’s Chemical Feast
2001 Elixir (Atavistic 203)
Xmarsx
2002 Xmarsx (Atavistic 138)
Boneshaker
2012 Boneshaker (Trost 113)
2014 Unusual Words (Soul What)
2017 Thinking Out Loud (Trost 158)
2019 Fake Music (Soul What 0004)
Harrison Bankhead
2011 Morning Sun / Harvest Moon (Engine Studios 039)
2013 Velvet Blue (Engine Studios 052)
Keefe Jackson’s Likely So
2013 A Round Goal (Delmark 5009)
Paul Giallorenzo’s Gitgo
2014 Force Majeure (Delmark 5015)
Chicago Edge Ensemble
2017 Decaying Orbit (Music+ )
2018 Insidious Anthem (Trost 177)
Audio One
2014 An International Report (Audiographic AGR-001)
2014 The Midwest School (Audiographic AGR-002)
Recorded live at the Green Mill honoring the likes of Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton and Julius Hemphill.
2015 What Thomas Bernard Saw (Audiographic AGR-007)
Recorded at Sugar Maple in Milwaukee and Constellation in Chicago.
Heaven Orchestra
2013 Live in Chicago (Aerophonic 006)
Chicago Reed Quartet
2015 Western Automatic (Aerophonic 009)
Trio Red Space
2016 Fields of Flat (Relay 013)
Mars Williams
1984 EFTSOONS (Nessa 24) with Hal Russell
2007 Extraordinary Popular Delusions (Okka 12056) with Brian Sandstrom, Steve Hunt and Jim Baker
2013 Moments Form (Idyliic Noise 0010) with Kaker Flaten and Timothy Daisy
2017 An Ayler Xmas (Soul What 003)
2018 Painted Pillars (Stone Floor 006) with Tollef Ostvang
2018 An Ayler Xmas, Volume 2 (Soul What 004)
2019 Elevation (Relay 027) with Rafael Toral and Tim Daisy
2020 Live from Vienna (Relay 029) with Tim Daisy
2020 Hornithology (Aerophonic 007) with Dave Rempis
2021 An Ayler Xmas, Volume 5 (Soul What 009)
2023 Two or Three (Amalgam 047)