The Sunday Listen: 'Zodiac Suite' by Mary Lou Williams
This week’s Sunday Listen is the Zodiac Suite by the much neglected, Mary Lou Williams, one of the best jazz pianists and composers of the 20th century.
Mary Lou Williams was a friend and mentor to many jazz icons , including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. She was also an outstanding arranger and composer, something few women got credit for. Arranging six to twelve songs per week for the likes of Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Gus Arnheim, Glen Gray, Tommy Dorsey and many more, Williams literally shaped the sound of the big band era.
Zodiac Suite is a series of 12 pieces for piano, each inspired by an astrological sign and musicians or performers who were born under it. It is one of the first instancess of the fusion of classical and jazz music, employing a wide variance of styles throughout the suite, including 20th century European piano preludes, boogie-woogie, vamps, ABA sectional forms, free piano cadenzas, standard song progressions and forms, and most importantly, more than anything else, the blues.
While relatively well received, the concept of recording a jaaz ‘suite’ much like in classical music was still new at the time, and the pieces were treated as a oddity and were as such not widely performed. More recently, however, a new breed of contemporary jazz musicians have reappraised the work as a musical landmark of the 20th century (Williams even rerecorded the Zodiac Suite in its entirety in 2006 with bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart). There a is a notable performance and recording by Chris Pattishall, which adds expanded instrumentation and some special effects, that really brings out the brilliantly defiant, visionary writing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=E44jOpGLU5s&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
Williams often spoke about the history of jazz and its importance in the Black American story. Envisioning jazz as a tree with roots in the suffering of Black Americans, Williams commissioned artist David Stone Martin to draw “The History of Jazz.” The illustration shows the music’s strong roots in the life experiences of Black Americans and a thick, straight trunk of spirituals, ragtime, swing, and bop. Blues runs through from the roots to the leaves.
