 Morning
Glory : A Biography of Mary Lou Williams by Linda Dahl
Mary Lou Williams
-- pianist, arranger, composer, and probably the most influential
woman in the history of jazz -- receives the attention she has
long deserved in the definitive biography by a leading scholar
of women in jazz.
The illegitimate child of an impoverished and indifferent mother,
Williams began performing publicly at the age of seven when she
became known admiringly in her native Pittsburgh as "the
little piano girl of East Liberty," playing one day for the
Mellons at bridge teas and the next in gambling dens where the
hat was passed for change. She grew up with the jazz of the early
part of the century, championed by the likes of Earl Hines and
Fats Waller, yet unlike so many other musicians of her time, she
was open to new forms in jazz -- she was an early champion of
bop, and a mentor and colleague to its central figures, such as
Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell -- and in broader musical styles
as well (after her conversion to Catholicism, she wrote masses
and other sacred music).
Most of the other famous women in jazz -- Billie Holiday, Ella
Fitzgerald -- have been singers. Williams was instead a phenomenal
pianist who performed solo, with small groups and big bands, in
vaudeville and clubs, and on numerous records. But she is equally
well known today as a composer and arranger of remarkable versatility
and power, having worked with, among others, Duke Ellington and
Benny Goodman. Her compositions have been recorded by artists
as varied as Marian McPartland, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat "King"
Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and herself -- and, more
recently, by cutting-edge players Geri Allen and Dave Douglas...
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