William Edward Davison (January 5, 1906 – November 14, 1989),[1] nicknamed "Wild Bill", was an American jazz cornetist.

He emerged in the 1920s through his work playing alongside Muggsy Spanier and Frank Teschemacher in a cover band where they played the music of Louis Armstrong, but he did not achieve wider recognition until the 1940s.

[2] He is best remembered for his association with bandleader Eddie Condon, with whom he worked and recorded from the mid-1940s until Condon's last concert at the New School for Social Research in New York in April 1972 (Chiaroscuro Records, CRD 110).

[1] His nickname of "Wild Bill" reflected a reputation for heavy drinking and womanizing in his younger years.

[1] The poet Philip Larkin, a fan, described his playing thus: Richard M. Sudhalter described first seeing Wild Bill at Eddie Condon's club in New York City in the 1950s: