Mary Lou Williams

Mary Elfrieda Scruggs was born on the eighth of May 1910 at Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of an Atlanta Black family of the principal post-Reconstruction Atlanta Black community. She was raised at the family relocation to Pittsburgh in the principal early-1910s post-Great-Migration period.

She was self-taught in piano at the principal Pittsburgh East-Liberty Black community across the principal early-1920s — and was hired at twelve in 1922 as a junior piano player at the principal Pittsburgh East-Liberty Black-vaudeville-and-piano-player community.

She was married in 1927 to the principal Memphis-born jazz saxophonist John Williams — and joined the principal John Williams' Synco Jazzers band at the principal post-1927 Kansas-City-and-Pittsburgh swing-orchestra community. She joined the principal Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy at Kansas City in 1929 — and held the principal Andy Kirk pianist-and-arranger position from 1929 to 1942.

She composed-and-arranged across the principal post-1929 Kansas-City period the principal Andy Kirk swing-orchestra signature compositions — including 'Walkin' and Swingin'' of 1936, 'Mary's Idea' of 1938, and 'Cloudy' of 1942.

She was hired as a principal swing-orchestra arranger for the principal Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1937, the principal Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1938, the principal Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1942, and the principal Earl Hines Orchestra in 1942 — at the principal post-1937 American swing-orchestra-arranging Mary-Lou-Williams commissioned period.

She composed the principal Zodiac Suite at the principal Town Hall at New York in December 1945 — the principal long-form jazz composition of the principal post-1945 American jazz-composition canon. The principal Zodiac Suite was performed by the principal New York Symphony Orchestra at the principal Carnegie Hall in December 1946.

She converted to Roman Catholicism in 1957 — and composed across the principal post-1957 Catholic-composition period the principal Catholic-jazz Mass compositions Black Christ of the Andes of 1962, Music for Peace of 1969 (Mary Lou's Mass), and St. Martin de Porres of 1962.

She was named the principal artist-in-residence at the principal Duke University at Durham, North Carolina in 1977 — and held the principal Duke University artist-in-residence position from 1977 to 1981.

She died at Durham, North Carolina on the twenty-eighth of May 1981 of complications of bladder cancer, at seventy-one.

She is honored here as the principal female composer-arranger of the American jazz tradition.