Bill Barron

Barron was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began studying the piano when he was nine years old and later switched to the saxophone. He toured with the Carolina Cotton Pickers when he was 17. He first appeared on a Cecil Taylor recording in 1959, and he later recorded extensively with Philly Joe Jones and co-led a post-bop quartet with Ted Curson. His younger brother, pianist Kenny Barron, appeared on all of the sessions that the elder Barron led. Other musicians he recorded with included Charles Mingus and Ollie Shearer.
Barron also directed a jazz workshop at the Children's Museum in Brooklyn, taught at City College of New York, and became the chairman of the music department at Wesleyan University. He recorded for Savoy, recording that label's last jazz record in 1972, and Muse. The Bill Barron Collection is housed at the Institute of Jazz Studies of the Rutgers University libraries.
Barron died of cancer on September 21, 1989 in Middletown, Connecticut.