JAMES "KIMO" WILLIAMS a Biography

James "Kimo" Williams was born in 1950 in Amityville, New York, and spent much of his childhood on Air Force bases, and also on his grandparents' sharecropper farm in North Carolina, where he picked tobacco, plowed fields and tended livestock on their rural farm. His later experiences at the age of fourteen in Biloxi, Mississippi (living near Keesler AFB) made a deep impression on him as he witnessed first-hand the segregated lifestyle in the Southern states. He credits this experience in Mississippi as the origin of his life-long ambition to persevere regardless of obstacles and further led to his passion to create his own identity and professional career as a musician and educator.

In 1968 he moved to Hawaii to join his father (a career Airforce member)and attended Leilehua High School, where he adopted the Hawaiian name for Jim(Kimo), as he is still called today. He also taught himself to play the guitar, and was known for his popular jam sessions in Sunset Beach, as well as his triple-jump record on the school track team.Immediately after graduation, on July 4, 1969, he enlisted in the US Army. The night before enlisting he attended his first major music concert- Jimi Hendrix playing at the Waikiki Bowl. He was so inspired by this concert and the music of Jimi Hendrix he knew music would be his life and he dedicated himself to playing guitar and music in general. After basic training, he was sent to Viet Nam (Jan 9th 1970, the day after his 20th birthday) where he served with the 25^th Combat Engineer Battalion in Lai Khe, building roads and clearing land in the jungle. An Army entertainment service director heard him playing guitar at one of the service clubs, and suggested that he form a band to perform for troops in the field: for two months, Kimo and his band "The Soul Coordinators" traveled to remote areas throughout South Vietnam, setting up their drums and amplifiers in jungle mud, often with their music competing with artillery fire.

After leaving Viet Nam in November of 1970, Kimo returned to Hawaii, and began playing with several local rock bands. In 1972 using his GI Bill benefit ,he applied and was accepted to the prestigious Boston based Berklee College of Music. During his five years at Berklee (starting as a guitarist who could barely read music) he developed considerable compositional talents and eventually created his own harmonic concepts ("Diagonal Harmony"). He started composing music that combined jazz, rock and classical styles. Also, while a student at Berklee, he formed his innovative 30-piece ensemble, the "Paumalu Symphony" (now called "Kimotion"), as a vehicle for his unique style of composing, and--after graduating in 1976 with a BA in composition--spent a year teaching at Berklee.

In 1978, Kimo and Carol (fellow Berklee music student) married and joined the Army Band program, spending a year with the 9^th Infantry Division Band at Ft. Lewis, Washington: Kimo went on to attend Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a 2^nd Lieutenant in 1980. His first assignment brought him to Fort Sheridan, IL---close enough to the music scene of Chicago that he and Carol could continue producing his large ensemble (and small-band compositions) in local clubs and concert venues. They set up a music publishing company (One Omik Music), as well as launched their own record company (Little Beck Music). To record their music they subsequently built and operated a recording studio from their storefront in Chicago. During this time he earned his MA in Management from Webster University.

In 1987, Kimo resigned from the Army as a captain and began his career as a teacher, at Sherwood Conservatory of Music in Chicago, and in the Music Department at Columbia College Chicago. After six years in the Music Department, he accepted a position in the Arts Entertainment and Media Management Department teaching Music Industry management courses. He is currently a tenured Professor and Coordinator of the Music Business concentration. He continued his military career by becoming the Bandmaster for the 85^th Division Army Reserve Band, and retired from the Army Reserves as a Chief Warrant Officer in 1996.

Kimo released his Vietnam themed cathartic symphonic-rock-big-band album "War Stories" in 1991, which received critical acclaim from national publications such as Downbeat magazine (4 1/2 stars). His second album "Tracking" was completed and released in November 2001, and featured his friends Vinnie Colaiuta on drums (formerly with Sting) and actor/musician Gary Sinise (CSI NY) on bass, who co-produced the album. This CD also included a track dedicated to his second cousin Tupac Shakur.

Since 1991, Kimo"s orchestral score Symphony For the Sons of Nam has been selected for performance by the Savannah, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Nashville Symphony Orchestras as well as many more both nationally and internationally. This score as being regularly programmed on NPR"s "Performance Today". Kimo has written five string quartets, and three symphonies and in 1997 composed the music for a Steppenwolf Theatre production of "A Streetcar Named Desire", and directed the 1997 Goodman Theatre"s production of the August Wilson play, "Ma Rainey"s Black Bottom". In 1999 the Lancaster (PA) Symphony Orchestra selected Kimo to receive their Composer of the Year award, with performance of his works, as well as recognition for his contribution to American Music.

In 1998 Kimo created the United States Viet Nam Arts Program (formerly ArtSynergy) to produce collaborative works of music and arts with American and Vietnamese artists. He has returned to Viet Nam five times and is currently planning a lecture tour for several conservatories there on American Jazz for the summer of 2007. In 1999, the West Point Military Academy commissioned Kimo to compose a piece to commemorate their 2002 bicentennial, and Buffalo Soldiers was the result.The piece was recently performed by the Chicago Sinfonietta and is featured on the CD "Buffalo Soldiers" released in 2006. A review by Chicago Tribune critic John Van Rhein wrote: "What Buffalo Soldiers sets out to do, it does most effectively. Both the musical layout and the uplifting tone of the 15-minute piece recall Aaron Copeland"s Lincoln Portrait". This work includes a narrative from excerpts of a Colin Powell speech given at the dedication of the Buffalo Soldiers monument at Ft Leavensworth Kansas. Colinb Powell personally gave Kimo permission to use his words.

In 2006 Kimo was selected as one of Chicago Magazines" Chicagoians of The Year and received a luncheon in his honor.

He is currently working on an opera The Winds of Spring with Vietnam Veteran Gary Tillery, and has completed a screenplay based on the courts martial of Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of West Point.

Kimo"s most current and visible project is the "Lt. Dan Band", a classic-rock group he founded in 2003 with Gary Sinise, and which has performed for USO shows throughout the world.

Kimo lives in Chicago with singer-songwriter Carol Williams, and"after 30 years of marriage they continue to collaborate in all aspects of Kimo's creative endeavors.As a tenor saxophonist, she has performed with his big band both on recordings and in concert, and is a featured soloist on his "War Stories" CD.She has created program notes and titles for his orchestral, jazz, and concert works, written the narrative recited by Gary Sinise on the recording of "American Soldier", and has contributed musical and harmonic structures for "Buffalo Soldiers" and other works. She also plays sax and flute in his "Lt. Dan Band".They have a daughter Rebecca.