Tony Williams, who died of a heart attack on Feb. 23 in Daly City, Calif., at 51, was a drummer's drummer. A child prodigy who joined Miles Davis' group at 17, Williams went on to found the Tony Williams Lifetime, the band credited with jump-starting the jazz-rock fusion movement. Ironically, his death came just two days prior to the release of a double-CD Lifetime retrospective, Spectrum: The Anthology (Verve). On Dec. 18, 1996, Williams sat in with the house band on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. What follows are the recollections of Late Night bandleader and drum historian Max Weinberg, an ardent Williams fan. -- Tom Sinclair
''Tony Williams was really the first jazz drummer who played with a rock conception. He was absolutely someone drummers looked up to and said, 'Yeah, I want to play like that guy.' He was just a monster among musicians.... The first time I met him was 1976. I was playing with Bruce Springsteen at the Palladium in New York, and he told me he liked my energy. For him to say that to me -- wow!
''His last TV appearance was on our show. At rehearsal that day, he was playing my drums. I was standing next to him and it was like a drum lesson. He was awesome. He played much harder than me; his chops were phenomenal.
''After he did the show, he wrote me a note and left me a lovely answering machine message. That message is kind of eerie; he says, 'I'll see you soon, brother.' That was right around Christmas, and I'm so glad I saved that message. There are a million drummers, but there was only one Tony Williams. He was a giant.''
