It began with a dream.
Years ago, Steven C. Bowie fell asleep and found himself standing in a bookstore beside jazz trumpeter Cootie Williams.
When he asked Williams what he was looking at, the answer stopped him: a biography of Williams that Bowie himself had written.
Years later — through a day job, health problems, and the stubborn passage of time — that dream is a book.
On Thursday, March 5, Bowie brings “Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams,” published by University Press of Mississippi, to Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena for a free discussion and signing at 7 p.m.
The biography revisits the legacy of a musician whose influence runs throughout American jazz history.
Williams played in the Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman orchestras — two major ensembles of the music’s golden era — yet his story has largely gone untold.
Reviewer Richard J. Salvucci praised the book as “a good read … musically sophisticated” yet “not overburdened with technical matters.”
The event is free and open to the public.
Steven C. Bowie Discusses & Signs Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams will be held on Thursday, March 5, at 7:00 p.m. Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-03-05/steven-c-bowie-discusses-signs-concerto-cootie-life-and-times-cootie-williams.
