William "Bill" J. Tennyson Jr. (1923–1959) was a notable American jazz musician.
After his mother died when Tennyson was aged three, he and his two younger siblings moved to live with their grandmother, Mathilda, who had formerly owned a sugar cane plantation near the Bayous of Louisiana.
"Bill" was a major part of Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance period.
In addition he wrote and composed for artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Johnny Mathis and The Orioles, Cab Calloway, and wrote and composed soundtracks for several Louis Jordan films, one of history’s first breaking black moviemakers.
[3][4] Tennyson died, aged 36, in a car crash in New York soon after completing a hit record Centerpiece with John Coltrane.