Sean Williams is a versatile guitarist, producer and educator with the ability to seamlessly glide between styles. As a music lover without regard to genre, Sean excels in various musical settings, from straight ahead or avant-garde jazz to blues, rock, pop or funk. Being a professional musician for the past 20 years, Sean has performed in a diverse array of musical situations. As a leader, Sean performs regularly with his organ trio as well as various jazz ensembles. Though jazz/improvised music plays a huge part of his musical life, Sean is also involved in various rock projects, musical theater as well as work as a session musician.
As a past member of one of the SF Bay Area's most working bands, Tortilla Soup, Sean performed regularly alongside members of Tower of Power and Malo. In 2011 Sean joined Berkeley, CA based Ninth Street Opus label and national touring band The Real Nasty, a high energy power trio weaving a unique rock, country, blues with a twist of modern pop sound. Sean can also be heard on SF based indy-pop group New Spell's self titled EP as well as their most recent EP entitled Of Time: Part I. As a member of the original rock band Pockit, Sean performed in many of the Bay Area's leading venues such as Slims, The Starry Plough and Bottom of the Hill, among others. Sean has had the privilege of working in several musical theater productions, most notably Ray of Light Theaters 2009 production of The Who's rock opera Tommy which garnered six Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, including nods for the band.
Along with performing and recording, Sean has been a music educator for over 15 years, working with students of all ages, ability levels and styles. Sean currently holds a Masters in Studio Jazz Guitar Pi Kappa Lambda - USC Thornton School of Music and BA in Music - California State University, East Bay.