Steve Williams is a multifaceted musician: composer, arranger, saxophonist. His depth of expertise and versatility has led him over his more than 50 years of playing and performing into a wide range of musical arenas, from the famed One O'Clock Band of his North Texas University days, to the U.S. Navy Commodores, where he played lead alto, was musical director, and contributed some 70 compositions and arrangements, to his current role as lead alto with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. A devotee of big band jazz, his recordings include the Latin Grammy winning album, Caribbean Jazz Project's Afro Bop Alliance and his own album, Steve Williams and Jazz Nation.

In 2005, Mica Bethea, a 21-year-old jazz student at the University of North Florida, was driving back to campus when he was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer in stand-still traffic. The accident left him quadriplegic, with close to 90 percent of his body paralyzed. Doctors told him he would never again play his instruments, saxophone and piano. But he refused to let the accident keep him from music. After three years of rehabilitation, he returned to school to finish his degree, this time as a composer, and has since become a prominent figure in the North Florida jazz scene and a respected new voice in big band jazz writing. He has also built and operates NSF Ranch, a recording studio in Jacksonville, described as blending “iconic analog gear with cutting-edge digital technology to deliver uncompromising sound, comfort, and creative freedom. This is not a typical hourly studio — it’s a destination where artists come to focus, create, and bring meaningful projects to life.”

An entrepreneur is defined as someone who starts or owns a business and is willing to take on the related risks. As a musician, your business is your career, and while you might not have employees or an office to keep afloat, you are a service provider running your own business. In a Harvard Business School Online article, “10 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs,” (https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/characteristics-of-successful-entrepreneurs) Kelsey Miller (https://www.kelseymiller.com/) delivers a list of attributes that, if coincidentally, unquestionably apply to playing music as a profession. In this episode of Music Life and Times, we take on the list and discuss how each characteristic applies to making a living as a musical entrepreneur.