{"id":125195,"date":"2026-01-20T18:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/125195\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T18:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:38:11","slug":"jazz-musician-chris-ryan-williams-explores-the-summits-and-depths-of-sonic-possibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/125195\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz musician Chris Ryan Williams explores the summits and depths of sonic possibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ChrisChris Ryan Williams explores the psychogeography of caves on Odu: Vibration II Credit: courtesy image<\/p>\n

\u201cThe States right now are in a terrible place and I don\u2019t take that lightly. But I think it\u2019s also important to get the opportunity to have different perspectives and music come through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jazz composer and musician Chris Ryan Williams is in the surreal spot of making gorgeous and contemplative music as the world crumbles into turmoil and dystopia. But he\u2019s using his work and his platform\u00a0to build community and connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really fortunate to live in New York City, where there is a pretty strong community of creative and expansive musicians and artists. So it comes really naturally to just try and bring people together as much as possible. I\u2019ve realized that even though the music and our community can be really beautiful, it\u2019s also really a bubble,\u201d ponders Williams. \u201cAnd it\u2019s important to, if not pop the bubble, at least step out and into different bubbles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by avant-garde vocalist Charmaine Lee\u2019s beyond-ambitious 50 states tour last year, where she played one gig in each state, Williams begins 2026 with a long weekend of gigs in Florida. He\u2019ll be playing solo shows in Miami, Gainesville and Orlando.<\/p>\n

This will not be Williams\u2019 first time playing music in Central Florida, however; he spent time at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2019 studying with flutist and then-resident artist Nicole Mitchell. Williams even played as part of Mitchell\u2019s ensemble at Timucua Arts<\/a> \u2014 where he\u2019ll now be headlining this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe connected very deeply there, and after that, I started playing with her ensemble really regularly,\u201d says Williams of Mitchell. \u201cShe\u2019s still a mentor, and working towards more colleague, peer. It all stemmed from the Atlantic Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams also fondly recalls holing up in the Center\u2019s library, flipping through the same books that had been read by the legendary likes of composer John Cage. He even found inspiration from the weather. \u201cThe swampy humidity that I felt just holds on to so much,\u201d he says. \u201cIt feels like things don\u2019t just pass through easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 own music and composition practice is deeply influenced by concepts of place and space \u2014 be it the humidity of Central Florida or caves in Puerto Rico \u2014 as evidenced by his latest album Odu: Vibration II from late last year. The album is a stunning and reflective collection of improvised pieces that were partially influenced by not only those actual caves but also Plato\u2019s Allegory of the Cave. Or the psychogeography of caves, at the very least.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe initial plans for that were to take Plato\u2019s Allegory of the Cave, go and explore caves myself and then make an album; it just didn\u2019t happen in that order. So I ended up having to look into the future a bit and really sit with what I think I\u2019m going to experience, what I hope to experience, what I might experience and create from there,\u201d says Williams. \u201cIt was really interesting to make this music from this imagined state, and then a few months later, I was able to go to Puerto Rico and go inside of these caves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The six-track, 40-minute album \u2014 Williams\u2019 first as a bandleader after many collaborative projects and ensembles \u2014 features saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi and trombonist Kalia Vandever and was mostly recorded live at New York\u2019s Roulette Intermedium, though with synthesizers, field recordings and sundry ghosts in the machine added after. Odu is a gorgeous, calming and ethereal soundscape with the players so utterly in sync, it\u2019s hard to tell where one instrument ends or another begins. There is a lot of improvisation happening between the players, but there\u2019s a strong narrative hand at work here too.<\/p>\n

\"\"Chris Ryan Williams live Credit: Philippe Gerlach<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did the whole thing live almost exactly how it is on the record, but there\u2019s a bit of movie magic happening too. With \u2018Moon\u2019 and \u2018Waning,\u2019 those were actually one piece at the beginning. If you bring \u2018Waning\u2019 to the front, you pretty much get exactly what we did,\u201d says Williams of the live element. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfterwards, I took that into my home studio, and started to edit a little bit, really trying to preserve the spirit of what is like a seamless performance \u2014 we performed it without any breaks. The fun of it came through trying to find out where the track is, where it begins and where it ends; what is the character of this piece that brings it to a place where it\u2019s strong enough to essentially stand on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Orlando show, dubbed \u201can electro-acoustic summit\u201d and also featuring UCF instructor and percussionist Thad Anderson, will see Williams trying out both new ideas and revisiting pieces, themes and ideas from Odu.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a composition that I\u2019ve been working on, I have a journey that I go on and that I hope the audience goes on with me. It starts in a pretty immersive, somewhat aggressive place that hopefully draws you in, and then I work my way through a couple of emotional states that eventually land on a version of the first track on my record called \u2018Moon.\u2019 So I do sort of a solo version of that,\u201d reveals Williams. \u201cI think people can expect to hear some recognizable things and lots of unrecognizable things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams, like so many of us, cops to feeling overwhelmed and often disillusioned, but thinks back to a recent performance \u2014 on the same day that U.S. forces kidnapped Venezuelan leader Maduro \u2014 as part of a traditional tea ceremony at a boathouse in Prospect Park that pointed to how music still could be a positive, centering force that cuts through the disorienting avalanche of Trumpian bullshit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody was freezing cold. There\u2019s still snow on the ground, but so many people came. We weren\u2019t promoting anything, just sharing live sound and tea, with ikebana artists both from the States and from Japan,\u201d he remembers. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd just doing this community thing in a very organic, natural way gave me a bit of respite and a bit of a place in which to process what\u2019s happening and what had just happened that morning. And I do hope that is what happens when people come to experience my music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27, Timucua Arts Foundation, 2000 S. Summerlin Ave., timucua.com<\/a>, $30<\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.<\/p>\n

Related Stories<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\u2018Fast\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe \u2018high-octane outdoor roller coaster\u2019 joins the park in 2027\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jazz\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tWilliams convenes an \u2018electro-acoustic summit\u2019 at Timucua with percussionist Thad Anderson\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Watch\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPlus Sophie Turner steals the show on new Amazon Prime Video series\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

This article appears in Jan. 21-27, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Ryan Williams explores the psychogeography of caves on Odu: Vibration II Credit: courtesy image \u201cThe States right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[62051,62052,62053,62054,62055,62056,139,7719,141,25034,140,62057,62058,62059],"class_list":{"0":"post-125195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-atlantic-center-for-the-arts","9":"tag-bubbles","10":"tag-caves","11":"tag-chris-ryan-williams","12":"tag-chris-williams","13":"tag-civic-minded-five","14":"tag-orlando","15":"tag-orlando-concert","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-jazz","18":"tag-orlando-news","19":"tag-thad-anderson","20":"tag-the-cm5","21":"tag-timucua"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}