Mary Lou Williams

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Lou Williams
Williams c. 1946
Williams c. 1946
Background information
Birth nameMary Elfrieda Scruggs
Born(1910-05-08)May 8, 1910
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
DiedMay 28, 1981(1981-05-28) (aged 71)
Durham, North Carolina
GenresJazz, gospel, swing, third stream, bebop
Occupation(s)Musician, composer, arranger, bandleader
InstrumentsPiano
Years active1920–1981
LabelsBrunswick, Decca, Columbia, Savoy, Asch, Folkways, Victor, King, Atlantic, Circle, Vogue, Prestige, Chiaroscuro, SteepleChase, Pablo

Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981)[1] was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and LP versions).[2] Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Early years[]

The second of eleven children, Williams was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[3] A musical prodigy, at the age of three, she taught herself to play the piano.[4][5] Mary Lou Williams played piano out of necessity at a very young age; her white neighbors were throwing bricks into her house until Williams began playing the piano in their homes.[6] At the age of six, she supported her ten half-brothers and sisters by playing at parties.[7] She began performing publicly at the age of seven when she became known admiringly in Pittsburgh as "The Little Piano Girl".[8] She became a professional musician at the age of 15, citing Lovie Austin as her greatest influence.[9][6] She married jazz saxophonist John Williams in November 1926.[3]

Career[]

In 1922, at the age of 12, she went on the Orpheum Circuit of theaters. During the following year she played with Duke Ellington and his early small band, the Washingtonians. One morning at three o'clock, she was playing with McKinney's Cotton Pickers at Harlem's Rhythm Club. Louis Armstrong entered the room and paused to listen to her. Williams shyly told what happened: "Louis picked me up and kissed me."[10]

In 1927, Williams married saxophonist John Overton Williams.[11] She met him at a performance in Cleveland where he was leading his group, the Syncopators, and moved with him to Memphis, Tennessee. He assembled a band in Memphis, which included Williams on piano. In 1929, 19-year-old Williams assumed leadership of the Memphis band when her husband accepted an invitation to join Andy Kirk's band in Oklahoma City. Williams joined her husband in Oklahoma City but did not play with the band. The group, Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy,[11] moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Williams, when she wasn't working as a musician, was employed transporting bodies for an undertaker. When the Clouds of Joy accepted a longstanding engagement in Kansas City, Missouri, Williams joined her husband and began sitting in with the band, as well as serving as its arranger and composer. She provided Kirk with such songs as "Froggy Bottom", "Walkin' and Swingin'", "Little Joe from Chicago", "Roll 'Em", and "Mary's Idea".[12]

Williams was the arranger and pianist for recordings in Kansas City (1929) Chicago (1930), and New York City (1930). During a trip to Chicago, she recorded "Drag 'Em" and "Night Life" as piano solos. She used the name "Mary Lou" at the suggestion of Jack Kapp at Brunswick Records.[13] The records sold briskly, raising Williams to national prominence. Soon after the recording session she became Kirk's permanent second pianist, playing solo gigs and working as a freelance arranger for Earl Hines, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. In 1937, she produced In the Groove (Brunswick), a collaboration with Dick Wilson, and Benny Goodman asked her to write a blues song for his band. The result was "Roll 'Em", a boogie-woogie piece based on the blues, which followed her successful "Camel Hop", named for Goodman's radio show sponsor, Camel cigarettes. Goodman tried to put Williams under contract to write for him exclusively, but she refused, preferring to freelance instead.[14]

In 1942, Williams, who had divorced her husband, left the Twelve Clouds of Joy, returning again to Pittsburgh.[15] She was joined there by bandmate Harold "Shorty" Baker, with whom she formed a six-piece ensemble that included Art Blakey on drums. After an engagement in Cleveland, Baker left to join Duke Ellington's orchestra. Williams joined the band in New York City, then traveled to Baltimore, where she and Baker were married. She traveled with Ellington and arranged several tunes for him, including "Trumpet No End" (1946), her version of "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin.[16] She also sold Ellington on performing "Walkin' and Swingin'". Within a year she had left Baker and the group and returned to New York.

Mary Lou Williams in her apartment with Jack Teagarden, Tadd Dameron, Hank Jones and Dizzy Gillespie

Williams accepted a job at the Café Society Downtown, started a weekly radio show called Mary Lou Williams's Piano Workshop[15] on WNEW and began mentoring and collaborating with younger bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. In 1945, she composed the bebop hit "In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee" for Gillespie.[17] "During this period Monk and the kids would come to my apartment every morning around four or pick me up at the Café after I'd finished my last show, and we'd play and swap ideas until noon or later", Williams recalled in Melody Maker.

In 1945, she composed the classical-influenced Zodiac Suite, in which each of the twelve parts corresponded to a sign of the zodiac, and were accordingly dedicated to several of her musical colleagues, including Billie Holiday, and Art Tatum.[18] She recorded the suite with and Al Lucas and performed it December 31, 1945 at Town Hall in New York City with an orchestra and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster.[19]

In 1952, Williams accepted an offer to perform in England and ended up staying in Europe for two years.[12] By this time, music had taken over her life, and not in a good way; Williams was mentally and physically drained.

Conversion to Catholicism[]

A three-year hiatus from performing began when she suddenly backed away from the piano during a performance in Paris in 1954.[20] She returned to the United States, converting in 1954 to Catholicism along side Dizzy Gillespie's wife Lorraine. In addition to spending several hours in Mass, her energies were then devoted mainly to the , an effort she initiated using her savings as well as help from friends to turn her apartment in Hamilton Heights into a halfway house for the poor as well as musicians who were grappling with addiction; she also made money over a longer period of time for the halfway house by way of a thrift store in Harlem.

Her hiatus may have been triggered by the death of her long-time friend and student Charlie Parker in 1955 who also struggled with addiction for the majority of his life.[21] Father John Crowley and Father Anthony aided in persuading Williams to go back to playing music. They told her that she could continue to serve God and the Catholic Church by utilizing her exceptional gift of creating music.[6] Moreover, Dizzy convinced her to return to playing, which she did at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival with Dizzy's band.[12][1]

Father Peter O'Brien, a Catholic priest, became her close friend and manager in the 1960s.[1] Dizzy also introduced her to Pittsburgh's Bishop John Wright. O'Brien helped her found new venues for jazz performance at a time when no more than two clubs in Manhattan offered jazz full-time. In addition to club work, she played colleges, formed her own record label and publishing companies, founded the (with the bishop's help), and made television appearances.

Bishop Wright let her teach at Seton High School on the city's North Side. It was there that she wrote her first Mass, called “The Pittsburgh Mass.” Williams eventually became the first jazz composer commissioned by the church to compose liturgical music in the jazz idiom.[22]

Throughout the 1960s, her composing concentrated on sacred music, hymns, and masses. One of the masses, Music for Peace, was choreographed by Alvin Ailey and performed by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater as Mary Lou's Mass in 1971.[23] About the work, Ailey commented, "If there can be a Bernstein Mass, a Mozart Mass, a Bach Mass, why can't there be Mary Lou's Mass?"[24] Williams performed the revision of Mary Lou's Mass, her most acclaimed work, on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.[25]

Following her hiatus, her first piece was a mass that she wrote and performed was named Black Christ of the Andes (1963), a hymn in honor of the Peruvian saint St. Martin de Porres; two short works, Anima Christi and Praise the Lord.[26] Williams put much effort into working with youth choirs to perform her works, including "Mary Lou's Mass" at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City in April 1975 before a gathering of over three thousand.[6] It marked the first time a jazz musician had played at the church.[5] She set up a charitable organization and opened thrift stores in Harlem, directing the proceeds, along with ten percent of her own earnings, to musicians in need. As a 1964 Time article explained, "Mary Lou thinks of herself as a 'soul' player — a way of saying that she never strays far from melody and the blues, but deals sparingly in gospel harmony and rhythm. 'I am praying through my fingers when I play,' she says. 'I get that good "soul sound", and I try to touch people's spirits.'"[27] She performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1965, with a jazz festival group.[15]

Throughout the 1970s, her career flourished, including numerous albums, including as solo pianist and commentator on the recorded The History of Jazz. She returned to the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1971. She could also be seen playing nightly in Greenwich Village at The Cookery, a new club run by her old boss from her Café Society days, Barney Josephson. That engagement too, was recorded.

She had a two-piano performance with avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor at Carnegie Hall on April 17, 1977.[28] Despite onstage tensions between Williams and Taylor, their performance was released on an live album titled Embraced.[29]

Williams instructed school children on jazz.[6] She then accepted an appointment at Duke University as artist-in-residence (from 1977 to 1981),[30] teaching the History of Jazz with Father O'Brien and directing the Duke Jazz Ensemble. With a light teaching schedule, she also did many concert and festival appearances, conducted clinics with youth, and in 1978 performed at the White House for President Jimmy Carter and his guests.[15] She participated in Benny Goodman's 40th-anniversary Carnegie Hall concert in 1978.[15]

Later years[]

Her final recording, Solo Recital (Montreux Jazz Festival, 1978), three years before her death, had a medley encompassing spirituals, ragtime, blues and swing. Other highlights include Williams's reworkings of "Tea for Two", "Honeysuckle Rose", and her two compositions "Little Joe from Chicago", and "What's Your Story Morning Glory". Other tracks include "Medley: The Lord Is Heavy", "Old Fashion Blues", "Over the Rainbow", "Offertory Meditation", "Concerto Alone at Montreux", and "The Man I Love".

In 1981, Mary Lou Williams died of bladder cancer in Durham, North Carolina at the age of 71.[15] Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Andy Kirk attended her funeral at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola.[8] She was buried in the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Pittsburgh.[31] Looking back at the end of her life, Mary Lou Williams said: "I did it, didn't I? Through muck and mud."[32] She was known as "the first lady of the jazz keyboard".[33] Williams was one of the first women to be successful in jazz.[34]

Awards and honors[]

  • Guggenheim Fellowships, 1972[35] and 1977.
  • Nominee 1971 Grammy Awards, Best Jazz Performance – Group, for the album Giants, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Hackett, Mary Lou Williams[36]
  • Honorary degree from Fordham University in New York in 1973[24]
  • In 1980 Williams founded the Mary Lou Williams Foundation
  • Honorary degree from Rockhurst College in Kansas City in 1980.[37]
  • Received the 1981 Duke University's Trinity Award for service to the university, an award voted on by Duke University students.[7][8]

Legacy[]

  • In 1983, Duke University established the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture[38]
  • Since 1996, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. has an annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival.[39]
  • Since 2000, her archives are preserved at Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark.[40]
  • A Pennsylvania State Historic Marker is placed at 328 Lincoln Avenue, Lincoln Elementary School, Pittsburgh, PA, noting her accomplishments and the location of the school she attended.[41]
  • In 2000, trumpeter Dave Douglas released the album Soul on Soul as a tribute to her, featuring original arrangements of her music and new pieces inspired by her work.[42]
  • The 2000 album Impressions of Mary Lou by pianist John Hicks featured eight of her compositions.[43]
  • The Dutch Jazz Orchestra researched and played rediscovered works of Williams on their 2005 album Lady Who Swings the Band.[44]
  • In 2006, Geri Allen's Mary Lou Williams Collective released their album Zodiac Suite: Revisited.[45]
  • A YA historical novel based on Mary Lou Williams and her early life, entitled Jazz Girl, by Sarah Bruce Kelly, was published in 2010.[46]
  • A children's book based on Mary Lou Williams, entitled The Little Piano Girl, by Ann Ingalls and Maryann MacDonald with illustrations by Giselle Potter, was published in 2010.[44]
  • A poetry book by Yona Harvey entitled Hemming the Water was published in 2013, inspired by Williams and featuring the poem "Communion with Mary Lou Williams".[47]
  • In 2013, the American Musicological Society published Mary Lou Williams' Selected Works for Big Band, a compilation of 11 of her big band scores.[44]
  • In 2015, an award-winning documentary film entitled, Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band, produced and directed by Carol Bash, premiered on American Public Television and was screened at various domestic and international film festivals.[48][49][50]
  • In 2018 What'sHerName women's history podcast aired the episode "THE MUSICIAN Mary Lou Williams",[51] with guest expert 'Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band,' producer and director Carol Bash.[52]
  • Mary Lou Williams Lane, a street near 10th and Paseo in Kansas City, Missouri, was named after the renowned jazz artist.[37]
  • She is one of three women who appear in the famous photograph of jazz greats, A Great Day in Harlem.

Discography[]

As leader[]

Year Title Label
1945 The Zodiac Suite Folkways
1951 Mary Lou Williams Atlantic
1953 The First Lady of the Piano Vogue
1953 A Keyboard History Jazztone
1959 Messin' 'Round in Montmartre Storyville
1964 Black Christ of the Andes Folkways
1970 Music for Peace Mary
1975 Mary Lou's Mass Mary
1970 From the Heart Chiaroscuro
1974 Zoning Mary / Folkways
1975 Free Spirits Steeplechase
1977 Embraced with Cecil Taylor Pablo Live
1977 My Mama Pinned a Rose on Me Pablo
1978 Solo Recital Pablo
1993 Town Hall '45: The Zodiac Suite Vintage Jazz Classics (recorded in 1945)
1994 Live at the Cookery Chiaroscuro
1999 At Rick's Café Americain Storyville (recorded in 1979)
2002 Live at the Keystone Korner HighNote (recorded in 1977)
2004 Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz with Guest Mary Lou Williams Jazz Alliance
2008 A Grand Night For Swinging High Note (recorded in 1977)
2016 Nice Jazz 1978 Black And Blue (recorded in 1978)

As featured artist[]

With Dizzy Gillespie
With Buddy Tate

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Unterbrink, Mary (1983). Jazz Women at the Keyboard. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. pp. 31–51. ISBN 0-89950-074-9.
  2. ^ Kernodle, Tammy L. Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams, (2004); ISBN 1-55553-606-9
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Frank., Driggs (2005). Kansas City jazz : from ragtime to bebop : a history. Haddix, Chuck. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 67. ISBN 9780195307122. OCLC 57002870.
  4. ^ "Mary Lou Williams". Biography. Archived from the original on March 15, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b "Kansas City's early queen of jazz dies at 71". The Kansas City Star. May 29, 1981.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Mary Lou Williams, Missionary Of Jazz". NPR.org. Archived from the original on December 18, 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Wilson, John S. (May 30, 1981). "Mary Lou Williams, a Jazz Great, Dies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Mary Lou Williams: Jazz for the Soul". Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  9. ^ Dahl, Linda. Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams, Pantheon Books, p. 29 (2000); ISBN 0-375-40899-1
  10. ^ "No Kitten on the Keys". Time. July 26, 1943. Archived from the original on September 30, 2016. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Conrads, David. "Mary Lou Williams". The Pendergast Years- The Kansas City Public Library. Archived from the original on October 11, 2019. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Mary Lou Williams | American musician, composer and educator". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  13. ^ Max Jones Jazz Talking: Profiles, Interviews, and Other Riffs on Jazz Musicians, Da Capo Press, 2000, p. 190; ISBN 0-306-80948-6
  14. ^ Karin Pendle, American Women Composers, Routledge, 1997, p. 117; ISBN 90-5702-145-5
  15. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Klein, Alexander (April 1, 2011). "Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981)". Archived from the original on March 6, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  16. ^ Duke Ellington Music Is My Mistress, Da Capo Press, 1976, p. 169; ISBN 0-306-80033-0
  17. ^ Media, Mountain. "IN THE LAND OF OO-BLA-DEE". Ejazzlines.com. Archived from the original on February 26, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  18. ^ Griffin, Farah Jasmine (2013). Harlem Nocturne. BasicCivitas Books. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-465-01875-8.
  19. ^ Yanow, Scott (2000). Swing. Miller Freeman. pp. 220–. ISBN 978-1-61774-476-1. Retrieved November 8, 2017.
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  21. ^ "A Woman's Place: The Importance Of Mary Lou Williams' Harlem Apartment". NPR.org. Archived from the original on December 20, 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  22. ^ Sullivan, Mark (November 21, 2008). "A Forgotten Story: Jazz Finds Religion in Pittsburgh". Pittsburgh Catholic. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
  23. ^ "Mary Lou's Mass". Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. March 16, 2010. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  24. ^ Jump up to: a b "Mary Lou Williams Centennial On JazzSet". NPR.org. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  25. ^ Briscoe, James R. (1997). Contemporary Anthology of Music by Women. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. p. 388. ISBN 0-253-21102-6. Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  26. ^ "Shocking Omissions: Mary Lou Williams' Choral Masterpiece". NPR.org. Archived from the original on December 14, 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  27. ^ "The Prayerful One". Time. February 21, 1964. Archived from the original on January 1, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2008.
  28. ^ Dahl, Linda. "Mary Lou Williams & Cecil Taylor: Embraceable You?". JazzTimes. Archived from the original on April 23, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  29. ^ Dahl, Linda. "Mary Lou Williams & Cecil Taylor: Embraceable You?". JazzTimes. Archived from the original on March 22, 2019. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  30. ^ Wilson, John S. (May 30, 1981). "Mary Lou Williams, a Jazz Great, Dies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 18, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  31. ^ "Jesuits in Britain". Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  32. ^ Dahl, Linda. Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams (2001), p. 379.
  33. ^ "Mary Lou Williams, First Lady of Keyboard Jazz". NPR.org. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  34. ^ Handy, D. Antoinette; Williams, Mary Lou (1980). "First Lady of the Jazz Keyboard". The Black Perspective in Music. 8 (2): 195–214. doi:10.2307/1214051. JSTOR 1214051.
  35. ^ Kernodle, Tammy Lynn (2004). Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams. Boston: Northeastern University Press. p. 247. ISBN 1-55553-606-9. Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  36. ^ "The Envelope: Hollywood's Awards and Industry Insider". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 5, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2017.
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  38. ^ Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture Archived July 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Duke University.
  39. ^ Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival Archived October 10, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, The Kennedy Center.
  40. ^ Mary Lou Williams Archived September 1, 2005, at the Wayback Machine at rutgers.edu
  41. ^ "Mary Lou Williams - Pennsylvania Historical Markers on". Waymarking.com. December 3, 2006. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2013.
  42. ^ Margasak, Peter. "Dave Douglas: Soul on Soul: Celebrating Mary Lou Williams". JazzTimes. Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  43. ^ Baker, Duck. "John Hicks: Impressions of Mary Lou". JazzTimes. Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  44. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Mary Lou Williams, 1910-1981" Archived February 26, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
  45. ^ Conrad, Thomas. "The Mary Lou Williams Collective: Zodiac Suite: Revisited". JazzTimes. Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  46. ^ Kelly, Sarah (2010). Jazz Girl. Bel Canto Press. ISBN 978-0-615-35376-0.
  47. ^ Harvey, Yona (2013). Hemming the Water. Four Way Books. ISBN 978-1935536321.
  48. ^ The Mary Lou Williams Project Archived March 8, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Paradox Films, 2014.
  49. ^ Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band Archived October 3, 2017, at the Wayback Machine Independent Television Service (ITVS). Retrieved February 2, 2018.
  50. ^ Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band Premieres on Public Television in April 2015 Archived February 3, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Independent Television Service (ITVS). March 17, 2015.
  51. ^ "THE MUSICIAN: Mary Lou Williams". Whatshernamepodcast.com. February 5, 2018. Archived from the original on December 30, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  52. ^ "Our Guests". Whatshernamepodcast.com. Archived from the original on March 23, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.

Further reading[]

External links[]

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