Written by Anna Vorhes

Born
May 10, 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia

Died
May 28, 1981 in Durham, North Carolina

Composed
Began in 1942, with the orchestral version following in 1946

Premiere
The small jazz ensemble premiered on December 21, 1945, with various technical difficulties including the conductor losing a page of the score.  In June 1946 at Carnegie Hall.  An orchestra of seventy performed the work

Instrumentation
one flute, one oboe, one clarinet, one bassoon, one French horn, one trumpet, one trombone, four percussion, one piano, ten violin I, eight violin II, six viola, six cello, four upright bass

Duration
6 minutes

Something to listen for
The jazz idiom was very natural for Williams as she had been an active performer since she was very young.  More surprising is her interest in and imitation of the music of Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, and Arnold Schoenberg.  As she composed this twelve movement suite, Williams drew on all the musical influences around her.  Originally for a much smaller combo of jazz musicians, as the orchestral version evolved, Williams used many other instruments to create an even more interesting work.  According to contemporary reports, some of the improvisatory nature of this was confusing to the first musicians asked to perform this.  That isn't apparent in performances of the work today.

Program Notes

Mary Lou Williams was born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs.  Her earliest years were spent on her mother's lap during church services, where her mother served as pianist and organist.  The family moved to Pittsburgh in 1915, and Mary Lou was exposed to touring jazz bands in addition to sacred music.  Her stepfather, Fletcher Burely, bought her a piano so she could hone her developing skills, beginning by age 12 sitting in with touring bands, she gained a reputation as "The Little Piano Girl of East Liberty."  She married saxophonist John Williams in 1926 and they moved to Oklahoma.  In the 1930s and 1940s she not only performed but wrote arrangements for jazz bands.  Earl Hines, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington all used and praised her arrangements.

The Zodiac Suite was conceived when a bandmate loaned Williams a book on astrology.  The composition developed as a picture of various friends and acquaintances and their respective signs.  We will hear Scorpio "creative, intense, and passionate" with "a strong and forceful pattern", depicting dancer Katherine Dunham, and Sagittarius music in a "triumphant and varied mood" for "those who are usually successful, noble, and magnanimous", depicting pianist Eddie Haywood.

Katherine Dunham was a dancer with a strong interest in ethnic dance and connections to anthropology.  Dunham used her own degree in anthropology earned at the University of Chicago and the grants she received through the Rosenwald Fund to explore the dances of Africa, the Caribbean, South America and African American experiences.  It's not hard to imagine modern dance as we listen to William's music.

Eddie Haywood was a jazz pianist who sometimes accompanies Billie Holiday.  In 1947, he suffered a partial paralysis which he worked through and was able to go back to performing in 1951.  His own composition Canadian Sunset earned the number two spot on the Billboard charts.

Mary Lou Williams never found financial security.  She walked off the stage at Paris nightclub le Boeuf sur le Toit, exhausted, in 1954, and spent the next three years away from the jazz scene. (Interestingly, le Boeuf sur le Toit was a club Darius Milhaud frequented often to hear the jazz that so intrigued him.)

Williams became a Catholic in 1957 and spent much of the rest of her career writing service music.  She wrote a number of jazz masses, including one commissioned by the Vatican, The Mass for Peace and Justice in 1969.   The following year she rescored and expanded the mass and retitled it Mary Lou's Mass.  In 1975, that mass was performed at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, the first time on record that jazz had been performed there.