by Linda Dahl
6 “This is the way music …” Barry Ulanov, unidentified review in MLW papers.
7 “Fortunately,” agreed another … Record Review, no byline or date, in MLW papers.
8 “when she turns to composing …” Colin McPhee, “The Torrid Zone,” Modern Music 23 (Winter 1946).
9 “As pure instrumental music …” Homzy, liner notes to The Zodiac Suite, VJC-1035.
10 With the exception of “Capricorn” … Thompson, “Mary Lou Williams: Zodiac.”
11 “Being determined …” M/M.
12 “I said, ‘Oh my goodness’ …” WILSON/IJS.
13 The next day, June 22 … Program notes to Carnegie Hall concert, in MLW papers.
14 “My Carnegie Hall recording …” Carbon copy, letter to Bernard Stollman, her then attorney, August 6, 1961.
15 “One of my greatest ambitions …” Mary Lou Williams, “Music and Progress,” Jazz Record, November 1947.
11. Kool
1 “If we are to make …” Mary Lou Williams, “Music and Progress,” Jazz Record, November 1947.
2 “We forget how …” Eric Lott, “Double V, Double-Time, Bebop’s Politics of Style,” Jazz Among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995), p. 245.
3 “an enormous variety of …” Erica Kaplan, National Association of Jazz Education Research Papers #9.
4 “her bop recordings …” Gary Giddins, “Mary Lou and That Mannish Thing,” Village Voice, June 20, 1975.
5 “All the bop musicians …” WILSON/IJS.
6 “ ‘Leeches’ would scribble …” M/M.
7 “When a woman is on the scene …” Leslie Gourse, Madame Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 28.
8 But little did Josephson know … Chip Deffaa, In the Mainstream, p. 36.
9 Mary herself never tried heroin … See Variety, February 24, 1965.
10 “After finishing work …” MLW notebooks, edited version in M/M.
11 “Everything went along …” MLW diary.
12 “She made them [Powell and Monk] …” Ira Gitler, Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 103.
13 “If you touch someone …” MOYLES.
14 “When Bud came to me …” BRITT.
15 “Whatever people may tell you …” M/M.
16 “There’s no precedent …” WILSON/IJS.
17 “Thelonious is a nice guy …” YALE.
18 “In the forties,” notes Whitney Balliett … OHA.
19 “Nowhere does Mary Lou …” Gitler, Swing to Bop, p. 105.
20 “I had Monk write …” MOYLES.
12. Benny’s Bop
1 “Charlie and I used to play …” M/M.
2 “that Benny is building …” D. Russell Connor, Benny Goodman: Listen to His Legacy (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988), p. 178.
3 “jarred his ear.… ” George Simon, “Benny Blows Bop,” Metronome, August 1948.
4 “Benny had scoffed …” Ross Firestone, Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), p. 339.
5 “Eventually Williams persuaded …” Collier, Benny Goodman and the Swing Era, p. 326.
6 “of course, very enthusiastic …” Simon, Metronome, August 1948.
7 Negotiations to end the recording ban … Loren Schoenberg, liner notes to Complete Capitol Small Groups of Benny Goodman, 1944–55, Mosaic CD MD4148.
8 “receiving a last-minute …” Ibid.
9 “It is unbelievable …” Excerpt from Joe Glaser letter in MLW papers.
13. Walkin’ Out the Door
1 “No other pianist male or female …” Barry Ulanov, unidentified review, circa 1949, in MLW papers.
2 “A brilliant musician …” Sharon Pease, “MLW Still Rated Top Femme Pianist,” Downbeat, November 2, 1951.
3 “How many Negro performers …” Unidentified newspaper article, 1957, in MLW papers.
4 “It seems no one can sing it …” Ibid.
5 Apparently he had other talents … M/M, May 22, 1954.
6 “I realize she has been …” Carbon copy of letter in MLW papers.
7 The Vanguard engagement … Review in Time, September 12, 1949.
8 “When she comes on …” Review in International Musician, 1949, clip in MLW papers.
9 “I always had bop ideas …” Quoted by Carter Harman, unidentified newspaper clip in MLW papers.
10 “a terrific engagement …” WILSON/IJS.
14. Chez Mary Lou
1 “nothing less than a revelation …” Max Jones, M/M, December 19, 1953.
2 she “was bitterly disappointed …” Undated clipping from New Musical Express, in MLW papers.
3 “As Mary Lou has …” Jones, M/M, September 26, 1953.
4 “Actually I’m the only …” “Mary Lou Still Learning, Teaching and Progressing,” clip from unidentified Chicago newspaper, December 12, 1952, in MLW papers.
5 “But,” adds Aaron Bridgers … Pianist Aaron Bridgers, correspondence with the author, 1996, from Paris.
6 “Le Boeuf sur le Toit seemed …” Chris Goddard, Jazz Away from Home (London: Paddington Press, 1979), p. 117.
7 “It’s a place where …” WILSON/IJS.
8 “a remarkable pianist …” Unidentified clip in MLW papers.
9 “That offbeat can …” Helen and Stanley Dance, M/M, January 10, 1953.
10 “I didn’t feel that way at all …” MOYLES.
11 “The poor lil drummer …” Mary Lou Williams, “What I Learned from God about Jazz,” Sepia, April 1958.
12 “Quite amazing,” she added … Carbon copy of a letter to Stuart Sprague, August 1955. Sprague was then her attorney.
13 “I was in my hotel room …” Ibid.
14 “I’m sure that I was on my way …” Mary Lou Williams, “What I Learned …” Sepia, April 1958.
15 “Life looked mean and ugly …” Carbon copy of a letter addressed simply to “Dan,” one of several long missives circa 1957–58.
16 “I’d pray and thank God …” Ibid.
17 “gained some spiritual strength …” Mary Lou Williams, “What I Learned …” Sepia, April 1958.
15. Praying Through My Fingertips
1 “She’s back in America …” Downbeat, April 20, 1955.
2 “This collection makes up …” Peter Russell, Jazz Journal, December 1959.
3 “I cooked for them …” People, May 12, 1980.
4 As for the Gillespies, … Ibid.
5 “Birdland’s vibrations are …” Carbon copy of letter to Maxwell Cohen in MLW papers.
6 “She has the beauty …” Father Woods, quoted in Marian McPartland, “Into the Sun,” Downbeat, August 27, 1964. Reprinted in McPartland, All in Good Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), and in Frank Alkyer and John McDonough, eds., Downbeat: Sixty Years of Jazz (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corp., 1995).
7 Though Mary made a strong showing … Gary Giddins, liner notes to Masters of the Jazz Piano, Verve 2-2514.
16. Black Christ of the Andes
1 “It’s the suffering …” Newsweek, December 20, 1971.
2 “If anyone is capable …” F. Anthony Woods, unidentified newspaper clip in MLW files.
3 “The tenors and basses …” Gayle Murcheson, “Black Christ of the Andes: St. Martin de Porres,” research paper read at Sonneck Society Convention, Worcester, Mass., April 1994.
4 “St. Martin was neither fish nor fowl …” Fran Goulart, Sounds and Fury, December 1965.
5 Like Woods, Crowley, and other priests … William D. Miller, Dorothy Day: A Biography (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 479.
6 If the rhythm section … Marian McPartland, “Into the Sun,” in All in Good Time, and in Alkyer and McDonough, Downbeat.
7 “We’ve got to think …” HANDY.
8 “I said, ‘No …’ ” Ibid.
9 “It’s like Father Woods said.… ” Pittsburgh ne
wspaper, unidentified, MLW clipping file.
10 “Miss Williams has a pair of brilliant solos …” High Fidelity, October 1966.
11 “My piano faced the door.… ” YALE.
12 “He kept looking up at me …” HANDY.
13 She had, of course, long been … Mary Lou Williams, “Music Can Help Youth,” People’s Voice, June 1, 1946.
14 “From Suffering came the Negro spirituals …” Mary Lou Williams program notes for “New Concepts in Jazz,” concert at Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, November 1962.
15 “I had lost my inspiration …” John S. Wilson, “Mary Lou Takes Her Jazz Mass to Church,” New York Times, February 9, 1975.
16 “It was long, drawn out …” John S. Wilson, New York Times, February 18, 1975.
17 “He asked me, again …” BRITT.
18 “8/21/67 … Dearest Duke: …” Carbon copy of letter to Duke Ellington in MLW files.
19 “She would write arrangements …” Brian Q. Torff, “Mary Lou Williams: A Woman’s Life in Jazz,” in James R. Heintze, ed., Profiles in American Music Since 1950 (New York and London: Garland Publishing Co., 1999).
20 There were as well … Ruth and Duke Ellington Collections, Duke Ellington Archive, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
21 Though the tempo … The two “Chief” lead sheets by Mary in the rock and jazz versions, and the corresponding parts in Ellington’s The River and UWIS Suite, have been analyzed by Peter O’Brien and the author, and by Annie Kiebler at the Duke Ellington Archive at the Smithsonian Institution. An incomplete score in Mary’s hand is also at the Ellington Archive, in the “Loco” and “Madi” files for the third movement of UWIS.
17. Zoning
1 “Cardinal Angelo Dell’Acqua …” Associated Press release, February 3, 1969, in MLW papers.
2 “So Peter hid behind a tree …” John S. Wilson, New York Times, February 9, 1975.
3 “written for the kids …” MOYLES.
4 As for “Medi II,” … Erica Kaplan, Jazz Research Papers #9.
5 “joyful, lifting pulse …” John S. Wilson, High Fidelity, November 1974.
6 “They don’t have to swing.… ” John S. Wilson, New York Times, February 9, 1975.
7 “I could not believe …” Brian Torff, “Mary Lou Williams,” Profiles in American Music.
8 “We were sold into slavery …” Mary Lou Williams, “Has the Black American Musician Lost His Creativeness and Heritage in Jazz?” unpublished essay, circa 1970.
9 “When I first got to Duke …” Jacqueline Trescott, Washington Post, September 24, 1979.
10 “She was playing like Erroll Garner …” A. B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Business (New York: Pantheon Books, 1966), p. 56.
11 “He sat down one night …” BRITT.
12 “doubly innovative …” Gary Giddins, “Search for a Common Language,” New York Magazine, April 18, 1977; revised version in Riding on a Blue Note (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).
13 “When Cecil is doing his things …” Ibid.
14 Mary “wanted him to play …” Hollie West, Washington Post, April 18, 1977.
15 “The result was …” John S. Wilson, New York Times, April 19, 1977.
16 “When I was coming along …” Phyl Garland, “The Lady Lives Jazz.”
17 “Cecil! Please listen …” Carbon copy of letter from MLW to Cecil Taylor, dated July 29, 1977, in MLW files.
18. Artist-in-Residence
1 “The possibility,” as Tirro … Frank Tirro, Summer Chronicle (Duke University newspaper), May 19, 1977.
2 “Nowadays, whites down here …” BRITT.
3 “Rock puts you in a box …” MLW, “From Duke Ellington to Duke University, Mary Lou Williams Tells the World: Jazz Is Love,” People, May 12, 1980.
4 “I’ll write out a tune …” HANDY.
5 “We’re living in a …” Quoted in Catherine O’Neill, “Swingers with a Mission,” Books and Arts, December 7, 1979.
6 “Willie the Lion said …” Quoted from a 1977 interview in Len Lyons, The Great Jazz Pianists (New York: William Morrow, 1985), p. 345.
7 She constructed her solos … Jeff Simon, Buffalo Evening News, February 17, 1977.
8 “So many things you’ve done …” Carbon copy of letter to Leonard Feather, spring 1978.
9 “We’re all happy …” Quoted in Rogers E.M. “Popsy” Whitaker (unsigned), “Talk of the Town,” The New Yorker, May 14, 1979.
10 an “air of quiet confidence …” Ibid.
11 the results of her … biopsy … Per MLW’s medical records, Duke University Medical Center, March 21, 1979, through May 15, 1981.
12 “You’re living above your means …” MLW letter and cc in MLW files.
13 “The students sat quietly waiting …” Marsha Vick, log of conversations with and commentary on MLW, 1979–1981.
14 “When she later attributed …” Gary Giddins, MLW eulogy reprinted in Village Voice, June 10, 1981.
19. The Mary Lou Williams Foundation
1 “a means of accomplishing after my death …” Quoted in Marian Turner, minutes to Mary Lou Williams Foundation planning meeting, March 1981, in MLW papers.
2 a teaching job in the fall of 1981 … Susan Brioli, “Father O’Brien Will Teach Jazz of Mary Lou Williams,” Durham Sun, September 7, 1981.
3 O’Brien was also receiving … Per Mary Lou Williams Foundation meeting minutes of June 1981, in MLW papers.
4 his “profound but needy relationship …” O’Brien letters in MLW papers.
A Selective Bibliography
Mary Lou Williams’s Writings
PUBLISHED
Mary Lou Williams: My Life with the Kings of Jazz. Edited by Max Jones. Eleven autobiographical articles published in Melody Maker magazine, April–June 1954. Most reprinted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, eds. Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1955); Max Jones, Talking Jazz (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1988); and Robert Gottlieb, ed. Reading Jazz (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996).
“Music Can Help Youth.” People’s Voice, June 1, 1946.
“Music and Progress.” Jazz Record, November 1947.
“What I Learned from God About Jazz.” Sepia, April 1958.
Untitled essay on the origin and roots of jazz, in program notes for “New Concepts in Jazz” concert at Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, November 1962.
UNPUBLISHED
Zoning the History of Jazz. Incomplete autobiography in several drafts.
“Why I Wrote the Zodiac Suite.” Circa 1945.
“Has the Black American Musician Lost His Creativeness and Heritage in Jazz?” Circa 1970.
Writings Involving Mary Lou Williams
Balliett, Whitney. “Out Here Again.” The New Yorker, May 4, 1964. Reprinted in Balliett, Such Sweet Thunder (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), and in American Musicians II: 72 Portraits in Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Briscoe, James R., ed. Contemporary Anthology of Music by Women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. See companion CD, p. 412.
Britt, Stan. “First Lady of Jazz.” Jazz Journal, September 1, 1981.
Dahl, Linda. Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. New York: Limelight Editions, 1989.
Fledderus, France. “The Function of Oral Tradition in Mary Lou’s Mass by Mary Lou Williams.” Master’s music thesis, University of North Texas, 1996.
“From Duke Ellington to Duke University, Mary Lou Williams Tells the World: Jazz Is Love.” People, May 12, 1980.
Garland, Phyl. “The Lady Lives Jazz.” Ebony, October 1979.
Giddins, Gary. “Search for a Common Language.” Riding on a Blue Note. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
——— “Mary Lou and That Mannish Thing.” Village Voice, June 20, 1975.
———.”Mary Lou Williams 1910–1981.” Village Voice, June 10, 1981.
Gilbert, L
ynn, and Gaylen Moore. Particular Passions. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1981.
Gitler, Ira. Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Goldsmith, Peter D. Making People’s Music: Moe Asch and Folkways Records. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998.
Hall, James C. “The Stewardship of Mary Lou Williams,” in “There Is No Deed but Memory: African-American Antimodernism and the American Sixties.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa (American Studies Program), 1992.
Handy, D. Antoinette. “Conversation with Mary Lou Williams.” The Black Perspective in Music 8, n. 2 (Fall 1980).
Holmes, L. D., and J. W. Thomson. Jazz Greats: Getting Better with Age. New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1986.
Kaplan, Erica. “The Lady Who Swings the Band.” Jazz Research Papers #9 (1989).
Kernodle, Dr. Tammy L. “Anything You Are Shows Up in Your Music: Mary Lou Williams and the Sanctification of Jazz.” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1997.
Kirk, Andy, as told to Amy Lee. Twenty Years on Wheels. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990.
Kufrin, Joan. Uncommon Women. Santa Barbara, Calif.: New Century Publishers, 1981.
Lyons, Len. The Great Jazz Pianists. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1985.
McPartland, Marian. “Into the Sun.” Downbeat, August 27, 1964. Reprinted in McPartland, All In Good Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and in Frank Alkyer, ed., Downbeat: 60 Years of Jazz (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corp., 1995).
Murcheson, Gayle. “Black Christ of the Andes: St. Martin de Porres.” Research paper read at Sonneck Society Convention, Worcester, Mass., April 1994.
Norvell, Derek. Untitled thesis on Mary Lou Williams, jazz, and spirituality. Thesis magazine (City University of New York), Spring 1992.
O’Brien, Peter, S.J. “Mary Lou Williams.” Extensive essay, liner notes for Folkways Records Album no. 2966, reissue of Asch 1944–47, August 19, 1977.
Pickeral, Charles W. “The Masses of Mary Lou Williams: The Evolution of a Liturgical Style.” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Tech University, 1998; Ann Arbor UMI, 1998.
Placksin, Sally. American Women in Jazz. New York: Wideview Books, 1982.
Porter, Lewis. “You Can’t Get Up There Timidly: Jazzwomen Part II.” Music Educators’ Journal, October 1984.
Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.