Bill Summers is a New Orleans based Afro-Cuban jazz

Afro-Cuban jazz

Afro-Cuban jazz is an early form of Latin jazz that mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with harmonies and musical timbre typical of Bebop. It was developed in the early 1940s by both Cuban musicians and Jazz musicians, with Dizzy Gillespie, Mario Bauza, Machito and Stan Kenton among some of the most notable...

/Latin jazz

Latin jazz

Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...

 percussionist, a multi-instrumentalist

Multi-instrumentalist

A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...

 who plays primarily on conga

Conga

The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...

 drums. Summers is probably most well known due to his work with Los Hombres Calientes

Los Hombres Calientes

Los Hombres Calientes is a New Orleans based jazz group. They are most associated with Latin jazz, especially Afro-Cuban jazz, and contemporary jazz...

 along with his friend and co-leader of the group, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield

Irvin Mayfield

Irvin Mayfield, Jr. is an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. He has been serving as Cultural Ambassador of the City of New Orleans and State of Louisiana since 2003. He co-founded and has co-led the Afro-Cuban jazz group Los Hombres Calientes since 1998. Their debut album won Billboard's 2000...

. However, despite this musical relationship, Summers has a much longer musical career than that, often working behind the scenes on film scores for various movies such as The Color Purple

The Color Purple

The Color Purple is an acclaimed 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker. It received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction...

and the television miniseries Roots

Roots (TV miniseries)

Roots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's fictional novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations, winning nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still...

with Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones

Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

. He also played with Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

 during the Headhunter years, and is mentioned in passing by the liner notes of the Headhunters' 2003 release Evolution Revolution as contributing to that recording. His former wife is Yvette Bostic-Summers, who often sings on Los Hombres' albums.

Discography

• Feel the Heat (Prestige
  Prestige Records
  Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
  
  , 1976)
• Cayenne (Prestige, 1977)
• Straight to the Bank (Prestige, 1978)
• On Sunshine (Prestige, 1979)
• Call it What You Want (MCA
  MCA Records
  MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...
  
  , 1980) U.S. #129
• Jam the Box (MCA, 1981) U.S. #92
• Seventeen (MCA, 1982)
• Iroko (Vital Records, 1992)
• Essence of Kwanzaa (Monkey Hill, 1997)
• Studies in Bata: Sacred Drum of the Yoruba, Havana to Matanzas (Bilsum Music, 2002)

Singles

Year	Title	Chart Positions
		U.S. Black Singles	U.S. Disco Singles
1977	"Come Into My Life"	#84	-
1979	"Straight to the Bank"	#45	#34
1981	"Call it What You Want"	#16	#21
1982	"At the Concert"	#38	-