'It Was Utterly Unique': The Altered Instrument Discoveries of Jazz Star Jessica Williams

Flipping through the jazz section at a vinyl outlet a few years ago, artist Kye Potter came across a worn cassette by American pianist Jessica Williams. It appeared like the quintessential DIY release. "The labels had detached from the tape," he says. "It was home-dubbed, with xeroxed liners, a little bit of highlighter to emphasize the artwork, and released on her own label, Ear Art."

Being a collector deeply fascinated by the U.S. experimental scene following John Cage, Potter was intrigued by a tape titled Prepared Piano. But it appeared unusual from Williams, who was primarily recognized for making lively jazz in the direct lineage of Thelonious Monk and Errol Garner.

Although the west coast jazz circuit knew her as a musical experimenter – during her performances, she requested pianos without the cover to allow her to access the interior and play the strings directly – it was a dimension that seldom found its way on her releases.

"I'd never heard anything like it," Potter states regarding the tape. Consequently, he contacted Williams to ask if additional recordings existed. She provided four recordings of prepared piano from the mid-80s – two live, two studio creations. Although she had stepped away from public performance previously, she also shared some newer material. "She sent me probably 15 or 16 synth tapes – complete albums," says Potter.

A Legacy Release: Blue Abstraction

Potter partnered with Williams in the pandemic era to assemble Blue Abstraction, an album of modified piano compositions that was released in late 2025. However, Williams died in 2022, midway through the project. She was 73. "She was struggling physically and financially," Potter says. Williams had been vocal concerning her hardships after spinal surgery in 2012, which meant she could no longer tour, and a diagnosis of cancer in 2017. "But I think her character, fortitude, assurance and the calmness she found through having a spiritual practice all were evident in conversation."

Within her more recent electronic, groove-focused releases such as Blood Music (2008) – defiantly tagged "NOT JAZZ" – and the two Virtual Miles releases (2006 and 2007), you hear a pianist attempting to break free of convention. Blue Abstraction, with its fascinatingly modified piano resonances, reveals that that desire stretched back decades. Instead of a consistent piano sound, the piano creates many different sonic associations: what could be hammered dulcimers, gamelan, far-off chimes, animals rattling around cages, and tiny engines spluttering into life. It possesses a incredibly pressing energy, with massive roars dissolving into biting, staccato riffs.

Listener Praise

Guitarist Jeff Parker expresses he is a fan of this "stunning, eclectic, adventurous and detailed" record. Vocalist Jessika Kenney, who has collaborated with Sarah Davachi and Sunn O))), experienced Williams play while attending school in Seattle in the 1990s, and was drawn to the force of her music, but was largely unaware of her otherworldly prepared piano before this release. Soon after witnessing Williams live, she traveled to Indonesia, seeking "surrealism in the improvisational vocals of the Javanese gamelan," she recalls. "Now that seems completely natural as a link with her. I only wish it was known to me then."

Historical Influences

These modified tones have technical precursors: reflect on John Cage’s altered keyboards, or the innovative methods of idiosyncratic composer Henry Cowell. What’s striking is how successfully she merges these novel textures with her own bluesy vocabulary at the keyboard. The language rarely departs from that which she cultivated in a discography spanning more than 80 albums, meaning the new hallucinogenically hued sounds are powered by the effervescent force of an improviser in full control. This is thrilling stuff.

A Constant Innovator

Williams consistently explored the piano. "I hit the notes, and I saw colours," she noted in an interview. She was given her first upright piano in 1954. In her writings, she shared the anecdote of her first "dismantling" – "something I repeated for all pianos," she commented: Williams took off a panel from under the piano’s keyboard, and put it on the floor next to her stool. "Seeking rhythm, my left foot turned into the hi-hat pedal," she explained.

Early on, Williams studied classical piano at the Peabody Conservatory. Early encounters with the traditional pieces led her to Rachmaninov; she presented his famous Prelude in C minor to her piano teacher, who reprimanded her for improvising a section. However, he detected her potential: the next week, he gave her Dave Brubeck to play. She figured out his Take Five within a week.

Jazz World Disillusionment

In time, Brubeck refer to Williams "one of the greatest pianists I have ever heard," and McCoy Tyner was just as awed. Williams’ 2004 Grammy-nominated album Live at Yoshi’s, Vol 1, shows her deep absorption in jazz history, plus her signature clever pianistic wit. Nevertheless, despite her dedicated efforts to learn about the genre – first, to the more modern styles of Coltrane, Miles and Dolphy, before moving backwards to Monk and Garner to Fats Waller and James P Johnson – she rapidly felt disenchanted with the jazz world.

After moving from Philadelphia to San Francisco, Williams was introduced to the great Mary Lou Williams. Inspired by the veteran's advice ("Don’t ever let anyone stop you"), she emerged as a strident, public critic of her scene: of the meagre pay, the jazz "boys’ club," the "jazz hang" – namely smoking and drinking as the key way of getting gigs – and of a commercial business riding on the coattails of financially strained musicians.

"I am repeatedly disappointed at the truth of the ‘jazz world’ and its failure to coordinate, express, and advocate for a set, any set, of core values," she wrote in the album notes to her 2008 release Deep Monk. Similarly, the writing on her blog was eclectic, honest, decidedly ideological and feminist, though she infrequently addressed her experiences as a transgender woman. As one critic noted: "To add to the sexism … that pushed her from her chosen artistic field for a period, imagine what kind of cruel nonsense she must have suffered as a trans woman in the jazz scene of the early 80s."

Forging an Autonomous Career

The artist's trajectory arced towards self-sufficiency. After time in the vibrant Bay Area scene, she moved through smaller cities such as Sacramento and Santa Cruz, making a home in Portland in 1991, and later going to a more remote location, to Yakima, Washington State, in the 2010s. Williams saw early on the great promise of the internet