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During the first half of the century, the South Side of Chicago produced such defining jazz singers as Nat "King" Cole, Johnny Hartman and Dinah Washington.

On Monday afternoon, the last of them, Joe Williams, died in Las Vegas at age 80.

Mr. Williams' death silences a generation of major, South Side vocalists and removes from the world stage a charismatic ambassador of Chicago jazz. In clubs and on television, where he played Grandpa Al on "The Cosby Show" in the 1980s, Mr. Williams spoke poetically about his youth in Chicago.

He was admitted last week to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, where he lived, to be treated for emphysema. On Monday, he left the hospital (without checking out), walking several miles before collapsing a few blocks from his home, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Williams last sang publicly two weeks ago in a Seattle jazz club, "and he was sounding as good as always," manager John Levy said.

Indeed, Mr. Williams was unusual among jazz singers in that his instrument never lost its range, plushness or dexterity. He proved the point last summer at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park.

Perhaps more important than the crushed-velvet quality of his bass-baritone was the way he used it, effectively summing up--as well as modernizing--the sound of traditional South Side jazz and blues.

Asked in a 1991 Tribune interview to name his source of musical inspiration, Mr. Williams said simply, "Chicago."

Mr. Williams was born Joseph Goreed in Cordele, Ga., but moved north with his family when he was 4. "When I was a kid here (in the 1920s), Chicago already was one of the most exciting places in the world, especially where music was concerned," he said. "I remember that as a kid I'd go to the Vendome Theater to hear people like Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Jimmie Noone. Then I'd hear the broadcasts on the radio. Art Tatum from the Blackhawk, Roy Eldridge from the Three Deuces, sets from the Aragon."

"He'd always be singing, even on the baseball diamond," remembered Chicago saxophonist Eddie Johnson, who attended Englewood High School with Mr. Williams. "When he started playing in South Side ballrooms with Johnny Lang's band in the late 1930s, he already was very meticulous about his sound and his enunciation."

But Mr. Williams faced a long struggle in attaining recognition. He toiled as a bathroom porter in South Side clubs and as a backstage doorman at the Regal Theater, singing low-paying gigs at roller skating rinks. He couldn't find work because "my skin was too shady," or black, he said in Dempsey J. Travis' "An Autobiography of Black Jazz."

"Nat `King' Cole, who was blacker than I, struck it big nationally through his recordings before most people outside the black community knew he was black," added Mr. Williams, who credited Cole for opening doors.

Mr. Williams' growing reputation around Chicago eventually earned him touring dates with Coleman Hawkins, Lionel Hampton and Andy Kirk, as well as engagements with Red Saunders' band at Club DeLisa.

But it wasn't until he teamed with a down-on-his-luck Count Basie -- first in 1950 at Chicago's Brass Rail, then again in 1954 -- that both artists attained new acclaim. Mr. Williams' version of "Every Day I Have the Blues," with Basie, made him a star in 1955.

"Joe brought a new modernism to the blues," said Chicago singer Geraldine de Haas, referring to his urbane style.

"He could sing blues, ballads, just about everything with Basie, and he was being backed by great new arrangements from Frank Foster and Ernie Wilkins," said Jeff Lindberg, music director of the Jazz Members Big Band, which toured with Mr. Williams for the past decade.

Though Mr. Williams performed widely on the strength of such recordings as "Goin' to Chicago" and "Smack Dab in the Middle," he maintained close ties to Chicago. He was to appear with the Jazz Members at the Harold Washington Library Center on May 16 and at the Chicago Jazz Festival in Grant Park in September.

In addition to his wife, Jillean, Mr. Williams is survived by a son, Joe, and a daughter, Anne.