Mary Lou Williams
According to a recent Washington Post article by Adam Bernstein, this year’s Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival will be the last produced by Washington DC’s Kennedy Center to focus exclusively on female headliners. Next year, it will be rechristened the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival, keeping the name of the venerated pianist, composer, arranger, but featuring at least one all-male act for the first time.
As Bernstein wrote:
“The decision to redefine the Kennedy Center’s jazz festival was urged by Jason Moran, the 38-year-old pianist and composer who began working as a jazz adviser to the arts center in 2011…. Moran said his musical development was “inspired by everyone,” including women such as the jazz pianist Geri Allen, so he did not place a stark emphasis on gender. In his mind, the Kennedy Center’s festival would benefit by concentrating instead on the legacy left by Williams, who died in 1981 at 71.”
More than a decade ago, as a parting shot before leaving my post as editor-in-chief of Jazziz magazine, I did a “Women’s Issue”: 64 female musicians pictured on the cover; features written by female writers; a review section of CDs by female leaders; and a roundtable discussion that included Cassandra Wilson, Carla Bley, Barbara Carroll, and Myra Melford, among others (sadly, I don’t have that one as a digital file). I meant it as a one-time consciousness-raising thing. Last year, Jazziz asked me to do another such roundtable. I worried it might be more ghetto than think-tank. But I asked around, and some musicians I knew thought it could be useful: This latter edition featured drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, pianist Helen Sung, singer Gretchen Parlato, alto saxophonist Tia Fuller and baritone saxophonist Claire Daly.
Here’s how I started that piece:
The collective trio at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard in early January was remarkable. If pianist Geri Allen switched up the harmony, bassist Esperanza Spalding seemed to anticipate the shift. When Spalding expressed the germ of an idea, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington altered the rhythm just so, as if completing Spalding’s thought. Back to Allen, who teased the idea into a lyrical line that somehow found its way back the tune’s theme. These collaborators spanned a generation, their respective careers embracing several styles, all of which informed the music without disturbing its cohesion. The least remarkable thing about the group was that all three members were women.
And here’s an exchange within the conversation that I think underscores Moran’s thinking. It also suggests why Moran’s decision would have put a broad smile on the face of pianist Billy Taylor, who, through 14 years until his death in 2010, established the Kennedy Center artistic adviser role Moran now fills.
HELEN SUNG: I didn’t know a thing about jazz growing up because I was trained in classical music. But I was fortunate be a winner at the Mary Lou Williams competition. I remember I did some research on her because someone wanted me to play one of her songs. I played with T.S. Monk later on, and he would tell me that, back in the day, all the musicians went to her for lessons. She’s the one who taught them how to play the piano properly and taught them harmony. I didn’t know that. I dug that. It gave me inspiration. And recently I was asked to play at a memorial for Consuela Lee. Billy Drummond, Steve Wilson and a bunch of other guys—they were all influenced by her, down in Virginia. She went back and started a school for the impoverished community. That’s what she wanted to do. That’s why she wasn’t well known. But that woman could play! Finding out about someone like her is humbling.
LARRY BLUMENFELD: Billy Taylor used to tell me about Mary Lou Williams, and how he brought everyone to her place and said, “Here, this woman will tell you how you should touch the piano.”
TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON: That’s exactly the word he used… touch the piano. The last time I saw him before he died he told me how she invited him over, and she was giving lessons to Monk and Art Tatum. Art Tatum? He said yeah, she was telling them how to touch the piano, and they were listening hard.
CLAIRE DALY: Mary Lou is in a way, because of the festival in her name, sort of the poster child for “women in jazz.” When people talk about “women in jazz” they always talk about Mary Lou. But sometimes I wonder how many people who talk about that actually know her music. That’s one area where I think the “women in jazz” thing is just a topic to talk about. Really what matters and what we’re doing is making music. The music itself is what matters.
