Jazz Articles about Mary Lou Williams

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Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams

by AAJ Staff
March 8, 2004

Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams Linda Dahl Berkeley: University of California Press ISBN: 0375408991 Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981): was she an important minor and perhaps neglected figure in jazz history, or was she a powerful and original stylist somehow left out of the jazz historical cannon? Should she, in fact, be ranked with the great jazz pianists like Fats Waller, Erroll Garner, Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell-all of ...

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Mary Lou Williams: Mary Lou Williams Trio at Rick's Cafe Americain

by Bob Jacobson
February 1, 2000

This CD is one of a handful by Mary Lou Williams finally appearing in “record" bins. Here's Mary Lou at age 69 and at the height of her powers (despite, as we're told by biographer Linda Dahl, physical ailments and a recent diagnosis of cancer). Also on board were Milton Suggs, bass, and Drashear Khalid, drums (brushes on all but one cut).

Billy Taylor has often said of Mary Lou Williams that “she has the most consistent way of swinging" ...

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Mary Lou Williams: Mary Lou Williams, 1945-1947

by Bob Jacobson
January 1, 2000

At long last the “record" bins have more than two or three CD's of Mary Lou Williams, the brilliant pianist-composer-arranger whose career spanned half the century. This album from her mid-career includes 25 cuts (total time = 66 minutes, 51 seconds), with Mary in a variety of formats: solo, trio, quartet, quintet ("Mary Lou Williams Girl Stars") and directing a ten-piece orchestra.

In the 1970's Mary Lou Williams described herself as the only musician who had lived through AND played ...