SKF NOTE: Here’s a Tony Williams story told by bassist Ron Carter in the liner notes to the newly released album, Roy Hargrove-Mulgrew Miller: In Harmony, by Resonance Records. It’s a splendid album of high level trumpet and piano music by two exceptional players. Straight, no chaser.

“Mulgrew (Miller) was with Tony Williams’s band for a while. I knew that band very well and I made records with them. Mulgrew and I would exchange Tony Williams stories.

“One of his great stories about Tony Williams was that every now and then when Tony would get to the microphone and announce, he would look over the band and say, ‘mop’ (M-O-P).

“When Tony said that, the band knew that Tony knew he had played some exceptional music that night.”