 He attended St. Christopher Episcopal Preparatory School, then entered the U.S. Army during World War II.After his military service during World War II, which included Battle of Iwo Jima, Williams first studied law, then literature at the University of Virginia (BA 1948), at the University of Pennsylvania (MA 1950) and at Columbia University.Williams, beginning in the early 1950s, became a prolific jazz critic, contributing articles to "The Saturday Review," "The New York Times," "Harper's Magazine", "Down Beat", and "The Jazz Review", which he founded in November 1958 with Nat Hentoff, which often featured contributions by jazz musicians, including Gunther Schuller, Dick Katz, and Cecil Taylor.