One can scarcely suppress a gasp of indignant astonishment after even a cursory perusal of Mary Lou Williams's résumé: Why is this composer, arranger, key-spanking pianist, evolving stylist, multimedia conceptualist, educator, philanthropist, and mentor to countless better-known male contemporaries not a household name? Who else could claim to have survived the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit, to have hung out in Kansas City with Jay McShann and intimidated Count Basie on his home turf, to have written arrangements for Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and Tommy Dorsey, to have offered her New York home to the bebop experimentalists as they worked up their wicked brew, to have played at a Parisian club bearing her name, to have written extended suites for Town Hall and musical masses for cathedrals, to have collaborated with choreographer Alvin Ailey, and to have recorded a live concert with music's supreme enfant terrible, Cecil Taylor?1 A gentle giant in black music in the United States, Williams earned accolades from the biggest names in jazz, praise that was only rarely prefaced with the condescending caveat “She's good . . . for a girl.” In the testosterone-poisoned jazz scene, that sort of praise speaks volumes. Williams was that accomplished and that well regarded by her peers.
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