MORNING COMPOSER - EUKOR (vehicle carrier, circa 21,052 tonnes, built 2008)
Tilbury, river Thames, England. January 2008.
MORNING COMPOSER - EUKOR (vehicle carrier, circa 21,052 tonnes, built 2008)
Tilbury, river Thames, England. January 2008.
MORNING COMPOSER - EUKOR (vehicle carrier, circa 21,052 tonnes, built 2008)
Tilbury, river Thames, England. January 2008.
Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981).  Born as Mary Elfrieda Scruggs in Atlanta, and raised as one of eleven children in Pittsburgh, Mary recorded over a hundred records, wrote hundreds of arrangements and compositions, and arranged music for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey.  Wikipedia points out that she "was friend, mentor, and teacher" to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Todd Dameron, and Dizzie Gillespie....and many others."

She taught herself to play piano, giving her first public performance at age 6,  She soon began playing for parties for a dollar an hour to help support the family.

She played the Orpheum Circuit at age 14, and played with Duke Ellington and his Washingtonians at fifteen.

Then, "One morning at three she was jamming with McKinney's Cotton Pickers at Harlem"s Rhythm Club.  Louis Armstrong entered the room and paused to listen to her.  Mary Lou shyly tells what presently happened:  'Louis picked me up and kissed me'." (Wikipedia).

She married saxophonist and band leader John Williams, and moved to Memphis.  When he accepted a job with Andy Kirk in Oklahoma City, she stayed in Memphis to lead the band through their remaining dates, then moved to Oklahoma City.

Together they followed Andy Kirk to Tulsa, then to  Kansas City, Missouri.  By then, Mary was playing some and composing and arranging for the band.

In 1930, she recorded two sides of a solo record that sold well, and first used the name Mary Lou Williams. 

When Benny Goodman was doing his radio show for Camel cigarettes, he wanted to put her under exclusive contract as arranger, but she declined.

Skipping over a prodigious amount of activity, we come to 1952, when she moved to Europe for two years, then returned to the U.S. and stopped playing.  In 1956 she converted to Roman Catholicism.  "Her energies were devoted mainly to the Bel Canto Foundation, an effort she initiated to help addicted musicians return to performing" (Wikipedia).

She spent the next several years playing clubs and colleges, composing sacred music, appearing on TV, forming a record label and publishing companies...and more.

"She wrote and performed religious jazz music like "Black Christ of the Ande"s (1963), a hymn in honor of the St. Martin de Porres: two short works," Anima Christi" and" Praise the Lord."  In this period Williams put much effort into working with youth choirs to perform her work, including mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York before a  gathering of over three thousand.  She set up a charitable organization and opened thrift stores in Harlem, directing the proceeds, along with ten percent of her own earnings, to musicians in need." ( Wikipedia) 

She was appointed artist-in-residence at Duke University (1977-1981) teaching and directing the Jazz Ensemble.

Wikipedia lists the following:

Awards and Honors

Guggenheim Fellowships, 1972 and 1977

Nominatee 1971 Grammy Awards, Best Jazz Performance--Group, for the album GIANTS, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Hackett, Mary Lou Williams

Honorary degree, from Fordham University in New York in 1973

In 1980 Williams founded the Mary Lou Williams Foundation

Received the 1981 Duke University's Duke's Trinity Award for service to the university,  In 1983, Duke University established the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black culture

Since 1996, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. has an annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival

Since 2000, her archives are preserved at Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark

A Pennsylvania State Historic Marker is placed at 328 Lincoln Ave., Lincoln Elementary School, Pittsburgh, PA noting her accomplishments and the location of the school she attended.

Toward the end of her life, she had mused, "I did it, didn't I?  Through muck and mud."

SOLO BLUES PIANO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3-B9vSFSb4

ROLL EM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3NBLwdQd6U

WILLOW WEEP FOR ME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e8AOox_prE

NANCY IS IN LOVE WITH THE COLONEL (Paris, 1954)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPEJb5_qhu8

WALTZ BOOGIE
Original 1946 recording of Mary Lou Williams' "Waltz Boogie." Released as the B-side of "Humoresque" on RCA Victor. Here she leads an all-woman trio featuring June Rotenberg (bass) and Bridget O'Flynn (drums). Born in Atlanta, GA and raised in Pittsburgh, by age 8 Williams was known as The Little Piano Girl of East Liberty


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4-nUQxsIM0

JUST YOU, JUST ME (1953)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDIaoLp4RpM



This image is square and available in 12-inch, 16-inch, and 20-inch sizes.
Ludwig van Beethoven Gravesite, Zentralfriedhof or Central Cemetery, Vienna, Austria (died March 1827)
096 Apr 6/13 A row of sheds we see on the way to work and on the way home each day.  Taken with the Lensbaby Composer and processed with Nik/Google HDR
095 Apr 5/13 The weather here is still frightful, cold and snowy this weekend.  There's not much color in the landscape so I've converted this to black and white.  I'm going to try to shoot barns I see on my way and back home from work until spring arrives.  I've done this before, but this time I'm using the Lensbaby Composer.
Singer, songwriter, pianist and composer Grayson Hugh is shown performing on stage during a "live" concert appearance.
Singer Polly Messer and Grayson Hugh are shown performing on stage during a "live" concert appearance.
MORNING COMPOSER - EUKOR (vehicle carrier, circa 21,052 tonnes, built 2008)
Tilbury, river Thames, England. January 2008.
MORNING COMPOSER - EUKOR (vehicle carrier, circa 21,052 tonnes, built 2008)
Tilbury, river Thames, England. January 2008.
MORNING COMPOSER - EUKOR (vehicle carrier, circa 21,052 tonnes, built 2008)
Tilbury, river Thames, England. January 2008.
See photo in original gallery.