William S. Fischer -

William S. Fischer is an American jazz-funk pianist and arranger who made the 1970 album Circles on Embryo Records, followed by the 1972 Edsiga/Arcana titles Akelarre and Omen. In 1973, he collaborated with Spanish songwriter Fernando Unsain on the Herri Gogoa release Akelarre Sorta Hiru.

Background

William Samuel Fischer was born on March 5, 1935, in Shelby, Mississippi. Fischer worked in blues and R&B settings in the 1950s with Ray Charles, Guitar Slim, Big Joe Turner, and Muddy Waters. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1956 from Xavier University of Louisiana. From 1956 to 1957, Fischer served in the U.S. Marine Corps. Between 1958 to 1962, he directed band and choir at schools in Cambria, Virginia (Christiansburg Institute) and Opelousas, Louisiana (St. Landry Parish).

Fischer studied music theory and composition in 1961/62 at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and Colorado College, were he earned an M.A. In 1962, he joined the Xavier University music faculty as an instructor. Fischer pursued postgraduate study in 1965–66 at the Vienna Academy of Music and Performance with Fulbright and Austrian-government support. In Europe, he studied electronic music and experimented with early synthesizers. Fischer reconnected in Vienna with pianist Joe Zawinul, whom he first met in New Orleans while Zawinul toured with Cannonball Adderley.

Fischer moved to New York in 1967 and worked as a freelance composer-arranger and music director at Atlantic Records. Zawinul brought him into three New York sessions from October through December for The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream. Fischer wrote five of the six compositions and arranged the sessions. He also played tenor saxophone.

Fischer arranged and conducted the May 6–7, 1968, Herbie Mann sessions for The Inspiration I Feel. Mann reunited with him in Berlin for the November 11 recording of Concerto Grosso in D Blues, with Fischer as arranger and conductor of a symphonic orchestra. Fischer arranged horns and strings across the February 1969 Roberta Flack sessions for First Take. Mann signed Fischer to Embryo Records for his first album as a leader, Circles.

Discography: