Mary Lou Williams, born May 8, 1910, died May 28, 1981. She was an American jazz composer, pianist, and arranger. Mary Elfrieda Scruggs was her birth name in Atlanta, Georgia. She grew up in Pittsburgh. She learned to play piano as a child and her first public performance was when she was six years old. In her teens, she became a professional musician. She joined Andy Kirk’s Twelve Clouds of Joy in 1930. Her first husband John Williams was a member of the group. Williams became the band’s most prominent soloist, composer, arranger and arranger. Williams also contributed to the band books of many other swing bands; she wrote “Roll’Em” for Benny Goodman. She was a staff arranger for Duke Ellington in 1941. However, “Trumpet No End”, an arrangement that Ellington derived from “Blue Skies”, wasn’t recorded until 1946. She formed her own band with Harold Shorty Baker in 1942. She also continued her solo work into the 1970s as an act, incorporating modern ideas into their playing. She became close to Thelonious Monk as a mentor for the new generation of bebop musicians in the 1940s. She had a diverse spiritual journey that included preaching as an Abyssinian Christian for a while. John Crowley (not to be confused with John Crowley the author) was her first step toward Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church, Harlem. Father Anthony S. Woods, who was her spiritual advisor, baptized her in 1957. She became involved with charities such as “Bel Canto”, which had thrift shops for the needy, and was also a counselor for those suffering from drug-related problems. She performed and wrote religious music, such as Black Christ of The Andes. Bel Canto collapsed in 1968 after she pledged to donate ten per cent of its profits to the needy. In the 1970s, her evangelism turned to jazz. However, the two drives merged when she led the first Catholic Mass that was entirely jazz music. From 1977 to 1981, she was an Artist-in Residence at Duke University. She died from cancer in 1981. Williams was awarded a D.F.A. in 1976. Bates College. The Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture was established by Duke University in 1983. Text contributed by users is available under Creative Commons By–SA License. It may also be available under GNU FDL.
