Nelson "Cadillac" Williams (September 26, 1917, Montgomery, Alabama

Montgomery, Alabama

Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...

 - 1973, Voorburg

Voorburg

Voorburg is a Dutch town and former municipality in the western part of the province of South Holland, the Netherlands. As also Leidschendam and Stompwijk, it is part of the municipality Leidschendam-Voorburg. It has approximately 39,000 inhabitants....

, Holland) was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 trumpeter.

Williams began playing piano at age 13 and settled on trumpet soon afterwards; he may have played with Cow Cow Davenport

Cow Cow Davenport

Charles Edward "Cow Cow" Davenport was an American boogie woogie piano player. He also played the organ and sang.-Career:...

 while still a teenager. In the 1930s he played in the territory band

Territory band

Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, 6 or 7 nights a week at venues like VFW halls, Elks Lodges,...

s Trianon Crackerjacks and Brown Skin Models, and acted as musical director for the Dixie Rhythm Girls. Around 1940 he left Alabama for Philadelphia, where he played with Tiny Bradshaw

Tiny Bradshaw

Myron C. Bradshaw was an American jazz and rhythm and blues bandleader, singer, composer, pianist, and drummer from Youngstown, Ohio.-Early years:...

 before joining the U.S. Army during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

After the war Billy Eckstine

Billy Eckstine

William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...

 hired Williams, and following this he worked with John Kirby

John Kirby (musician)

John Kirby , was a jazz double-bassist who also played trombone and tuba.-Background:Kirby may have been born in Winchester, Virginia, although other sources say he was born in Baltimore, Maryland, orphaned, and adopted. Kirby hit New York at 17, but after his trombone got stolen, he switched to...

 and Billy Kyle

Billy Kyle

William Osborne "Billy" Kyle was an American jazz pianist.-Biography:Kyle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began playing the piano in school and by the early 1930s worked with Lucky Millinder, and later the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. In 1938, he joined John Kirby's band, but was drafted in...

. In 1949 he began the first of several stints with Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, who bestowed upon him the nickname

Nickname

A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....

 "Cadillac". In 1951 he left Ellington's employ and moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he led his own bands and recorded for French labels. He returned to Ellington in 1956, and played with him again in 1969 on a tour of Europe. He died in the Netherlands in 1973.