MARY LOU WILLIAMS - CD FIRST LADY OF THE PIANO

Popis - FIRST LADY OF THE PIANO:
The standard sources on jazz list Mary Lou Williams’ birthplace as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In her liner notes for My Mama Pinned A Rose On Me, Mary Lou sets the record straight: “I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Later we moved to Pittsburgh. I must have been four or six years old by then.” Her birth date is May 8, 1910. Since she started her professional career at the age of 15 in 1925, that means that Mary Lou will soon be celebrating her 55th anniversary in the music business. Williams’ career has been nothing short of phenomenal. Like so many of her contemporaries, Mary Lou started out in vaudeville. She accompanied the team of Seymour and Jeanette. Several years later while visiting Kansas City, she met and married John Williams, an alto saxophonist with George E. Lee’s band. In 1929, the Williamses joined up with Andy Kirk’s Clouds of Joy. Since Andy already had a pianist, Mary Lou at first had to be content with writing arrangements. Two years later, though, she got her chance at piano and became well known through her work on Kirk’s recordings for Brunswick. In addition to playing, Mary Lou served as Kirk’s musical director and chief writer-arranger. Her best known charts for Kirk included “Foggy Bottom,” “Walkin’ and Swinging’,” and “Little Joe from Chicago.” She also contributed “Camel Hop” and “Roll ‘Em” to the book of Benny Goodman’s band. During her long stay with Kirk, Mary Lou became immersed in the wide open Kansas City music scene. In the process, she became one of the greatest interpreters of the blues, the Midwest’s musical backbone. As one of the most sought after pianists for K.C.’s legendary after-hours jams, Mary Lou played with all the giants of the day – Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Herschel Evans, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and others. In 1941, she departed from Kirk’s band and divorced her husband. Mary Lou had sensed a new direction in the music she loved and wanted to be where the action was. The music became known as bebop; its center was New York City. In the same year, Mary Lou married trumpeter Harold “Shorty” Baker with whom she co-led a small band. The marriage and band, however, were short-lived. Undaunted, she worked solo or with a small group at New York’s Café Society. She also continued her writing. “Trumpets No End” was among her arrangements for Duke Ellington. In addition, she completed “The Zodiac Suite,” which was performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1946. Though her playing in the thirties reflected the influences of Earl Hines, boogie-woogie and the blues, she became increasingly fascinated with the revolution being spawned by bebop. Aside from being a familiar figure at Minton’s, her apartment on Hamilton Terrace became a workshop for such young Turks as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Tadd Dameron and Dizzy Gillespie, who all sought her counsel and encouragement. The fifties proved a major turning point for both Mary Lou’s music and personal life. After a year in England, 1953, and another in Paris, she returned to America to devote herself to her new religion, Roman Catholicism. She had virtually retired from the jazz scene. Mary Lou’s music became tightly focused around religious themes. Her first Mass, simply called “Mass,” was performed in 1966. The next year, a Carnegie Hall concert titled “Praise the Lord in Many Voices” included what has become a standard in her repertory, a history of jazz for solo piano. There were also three sacred pieces. Since then, Williams has written a “Mass for the Lenten Season” and another commissioned by the Vatican, “Mary Lou’s Mass.” She also has composed for Alvin Ailey’s Dance Theatre. Duke Ellington wrote of Mary Lou in his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress: “Mary Lou Williams is perpetually contemporary. Her music retains a standard of quality that is timeless.” To prove the point from a recent event, one only has to look back to April 17, 1977, when Mary Lou and Cecil Taylor collaborated for a Carnegie Hall event entitled “A Concert of New Music for Two Pianos Exploring the History of Jazz with Love.” To prove the point from a more distant perspective, one only has to slip this disc onto a turntable. Though recorded in England in 1953, the music sparkles with Mary Lou’s perpetually zestful youthfulness. In “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” she bubbles with ebullient buoyancy. For the bright “Lady Bird” by Dameron, one of her ardent disciples, Mary Lou mixes darting right-hand lines, chordal punctuations and a perfectly placed quote from “Out of Nowhere.” In the hauntingly beautiful “’Round About Midnight,” by Monk, another of her devotees, Mary Lou allows her harmonic compass free reign. Williams’ one original, “Kool Bongo,” is a Latinesque blues designed to show off the bongo touch of the clarinetist Tony Scott. “Don’t Blame Me” is a lovely ballad displaying her lyrical warmth. “Perdido” perks with brisk boppishness while “Titorus” ventures into the exotic realm of Afro-Cuban. In this as in all her work, Mary Lou Williams proves anew why she is, indeed, the First Lady of Piano. -Chuck Berg The University of Kansas From the original liner notes, 1979.