Steve Williams is a musician, composer, and interdisciplinary researcher based in Brooklyn, New York. Steve’s work draws on his extensive experience as a performer and his anthropological background, combining experiments in ethnography and composition to create music that explores the possibilities of rhythmic intricacy while capturing wonder, texture, and humor. Deftly shifting among chamber ensembles, free improvisation, and re-imaginings of Jazz history through the music of SpongeBob SquarePants, Steve draws on a wide variety of musical traditions, internet subcultures, lived experience, and collaborations. Growing up in Dallas, Texas, Steve played bass from an early age, both in local bands and through formal jazz training at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. At The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, Steve continued to expand his musical practice with Harish Rhaghavan, Michael Formanek, and Ben Street, while beginning to study at The New School for Social Research as an interdisciplinary scholar in the social sciences, focusing on the intersection of anthropology, sound studies, and internet studies. Steve graduated with a BFA in Jazz Performance and a BA and MA in Anthropology.

Steve can be seen on stage with Goldbloom, Alfredo Colon Quartet, Tiny Tree, Secret Mall, Retumbra, and various other groups in and around New York City. Maintaining an active research practice, Steve continues to explore the relationship between affect, sound, and human experience through ethnographic investigation, literary analysis, and composition.  

“Nice Boots” – Matt Penman

“Steve is like a Thunder-Blanket but a person”  – Spencer Kenney