[Dixielandjazz] Mary Lou Williams centennial

[Harry Callaghan]

I have an album by Andy Kirk comprised mainly of Mary Lou Williams
arrangements and it is nothing short of sensational.  It includes a number
entitled "Lady Who Swings the Blues", obviously referring to her, with a
vocal by Harry Mills.

I read where after retiring from showbiz, Andy Kirk became manager of the
Hotel Teresa in NY's Harlem.

While I have never been able to pin down the exact years involved, it is
quite conceivable that Andy was running the place when Fidel Castro and his
houligans were cooking chickens in their rooms during their first trip to NY
following the overthrow of the Batista regime.

HC


On 8/4/10, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:
>
> Major Cause for Celebration: 'Mary Lou Williams at 100'
> by Howard Reich
> Chicago Tribune, August 3, 2010
>
> Jazz has been a male-dominated art since the beginning, roughly a century
> ago --
> and matters haven't improved much since then.
> To this day, women who win fame in jazz tend to be singers or
> singer-pianists. If
> you doubt it, just try to name a few women trumpeters, saxophonists or
> drummers who
> have attained wide recognition in jazz.
> All of which can only increase one's admiration for Mary Lou Williams, who
> started
> out as a virtuoso stride pianist in 1920s; thrived as chief arranger and
> soloist
> for Andy Kirk's great swing orchestra, the Twelve Clouds of Joy, in the
> 1930s and
> early '40s; mentored a generation of emerging bebop giants, including
> Thelonious
> Monk and Dizzy Gillespie; and created a colossal inventory of songs,
> recordings and
> sacred compositions spanning a broad swath of styles.
> Her influence spanned decades -- until her death in 1981 at age 71 --
> notwithstanding
> the sexism of her era.
> No wonder the jazz world has been honoring Williams' centennial, which will
> be celebrated
> in a major way Thursday night at Millennium Park. "A Woman Beyond Time:
> Mary Lou
> Williams at 100" will revive classic Williams works and feature a
> world-premiere
> composition, "Sweet Mary Lou," penned and performed by former Chicago
> pianist Amina
> Claudine Myers and a big band.
> The concert should serve to underscore the enormous scope of Williams'
> contributions.
> "There are really only two women in the early history of jazz who have had
> a major
> impact on their fellow musicians and the direction their music takes -- one
> was Mary
> Lou Williams, and one was our own Lil Armstrong," says historian Richard
> Wang, referring
> to the second wife of Louis Armstrong, a pianist who spent much of her
> adult life
> in Chicago.
> As for Williams, "The founding fathers of bebop gathered around her," says
> Wang.
> "As pianist, she had a fantastic technique, and a great vocabulary of the
> history
> of the music under her fingers."
> Beyond the magnitude of her musical achievements, however, Williams also
> defied the
> conventions of her era to prove that a woman could hold a leadership
> position in
> jazz. She wasn't the only woman to do so: Ella Fitzgerald fronted Chick
> Webb's popular
> orchestra after his death, in 1939; trombonist Melba Liston penned lustrous
> scores
> for major bandleaders such as Randy Weston; Blanche Calloway (Cab
> Calloway's sister)
> led her own orchestra in the 1930s, until it fell into bankruptcy.
> But no other woman of Williams' generation proved as successful in as many
> realms
> of music as she, her precedents inspiring generations of women ever after.
> "She shed a light on the path," says Chicago pianist Bethany Pickens, who
> will play
> some of Williams' tricky solo pieces to open the centennial concert.
> "She may not have had support, but she didn't let that impede her efforts,
> and that's
> what I've learned from her: You've got to keep pressing on....
> "The climate hasn't really changed that much.... But if she was able to do
> what she
> did during her time, then I don't really have any excuses."
> But Williams' lessons also transcend gender, because she showed how
> visionary artists
> can evolve beyond their first artistic breakthroughs. A self-taught pianist
> who was
> working vaudeville stages in the 1920s, Williams became a top-flight
> composer-arranger
> in the '30s, a bebop progenitor in the '40s, a composer of vast sacred
> scores in
> the 1960s and '70s.
> "Mary Lou did everything," says pianist Myers.
> "That's the power and significance of her music.... There was nobody like
> Mary Lou,
> and there still isn't, even in this day and age."
> -30
>
>
> --Bob Ringwald
> www.ringwald.com
> Fulton Street Jazz Band
> 916/806-9551
> Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV
>
> "We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like
> a man standing
> in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle"
> -- Winston Churchill
>
>
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-- 
Some men see things as they are and say why....I dream things that never
were and say why not            -
                        -George Bernard Shaw