As I’ve been studying the development of jazz, and the lives of many of its luminaries, a few things are apparent:
- Most of the jazz artists whose names we recognize still, decades later, are male. Period.
- Though jazz stems from black folk music, its many revolutions were often accepted only when introduced to mainstream listeners by white artists.
- A large number of jazz musicians had brilliant careers cut short by drug and alcohol use or some other tragic event, like car accidents or illness (Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Chick Webb, Clifford Brown, Charlie Christian, Fats Waller, Chu Berry, Jimmy Blanton, Bix Beiderbecke and Glenn Miller, to name a few).
Yet, despite all of this, Mary Lou Williams, a brilliant pianist and arranger who started off playing with a territory band led by tuba player Andy Kirk, called the Twelve Clouds of Joy emerged as a shining star. Her incredible talent as both a pianist and an arranger, along with her perfect pitch and remarkable memory, quickly caught the attention of big names in jazz, like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. And unlike many of her contemporaries in jazz, Williams had a long, productive career.
Yet, before I began studying this course I’d never heard of her.
That, in itself, is a tragedy.
Once I discovered Mary Lou Williams, I wanted to learn as much as I could about this great lady of jazz. That led me to stumble across her biography and the efforts of filmmaker Carol Bash to create a documentary about Williams’ life, entitled Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band.
Below is a sample of Williams on piano. You can listen to her music on Spotify, using the link below.
Which artists, male or female, who haven’t received the recognition they deserved, would you recommend?
Mary Lou Williams, New York, N.Y., ca. 1946 courtesy of Ky. Some rights reserved.