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Mary Lou Williams: A Fungus Amungus

By Ian Patterson
December 29, 2025
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The title sounds like something from the fertile imagination of Charles Mingus. A blindfold listening test might throw up Sun Ra. "A Fungus Amungus," however, is Mary Lou Williams and nothing but. This solo piano piece clocks in at a swift three minutes, but the Atlanta-born, Pittsburgh-raised pianist packs a lot of notes and a lot of adventure into the time frame.

From Black Christ Of The Andes (Mary Records/Folkways Records, 1964), this restless, angular and intensely probing improvisation stands out from the swing, blues, choral and spiritual compositions—played mostly in trios—that make up the rest of the album. Its atmosphere is more in keeping with the title originally intended for the album—Music For Disturbed Souls. Listening to Williams in such an avant-garde setting makes her later paring with Cecil Taylor which rendered Embraced (Pablo Live, 1977) seem like a reasonable idea after all.

Contact Ian Patterson on All About Jazz.
Ian is dedicated to the promotion of jazz and all creative music all over the world, and to catching just a little piece of it for himself.

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