Mary Lou Williams: Into the Sun by Marian McPartland — 8/27/1964

[Dr. Nelson Harrison]

An Exclusive Online Extra

Her early records are collectors’ items. Her writing and playing have become part of the pattern of jazz history. She has transcended the difficulties experienced by women in the music field and through several decades has held a position of eminence as one of jazz’s most original and creative pianists. She speaks softly: “Anything you are shows up in your music—jazz is whatever you are playing yourself, being yourself, letting your thoughts come through.”

Her voice has the ring of authority, and well it may, for Mary Lou Williams’ career, dating back to her childhood in Pittsburgh, Pa., and her Kansas City days with the Andy Kirk Orchestra, has always been one of consistent musical integrity.

Mary Lou’s playing is real. Earthy. Running through all the emotions, it speaks volumes, for there is much in its creator that comes out in the music, a part of herself she cannot help revealing, so that at times one has the feeling almost of intruding on her thoughts, of hearing secrets not meant to be shared, of being able to probe the recesses of her mind. Sometimes Mary Lou’s mood is dark, brooding—like a pearl diver, she searches along the depths of the lower register of the piano and then, as if triumphant at a sudden discovery, she shifts to the treble, launching into a series of light, pulsating, chordal figures.

She possesses a natural ability to generate a swinging feeling—an infallible time sense—an original harmonic concept, a way of voicing chords that is only hers. She doesn’t veer far from the blues. Whatever her mood, whatever the tempo, she weaves a pattern, a design, faint at first, like a rubbed drawing, but then appearing more strongly, until it breaks into a kaleidoscope of color.

Mary Lou has found the way to put her emotions, thoughts, and feelings to good use. They come out powerfully, and sometimes prayerfully, for the spiritual side of the blues is always strong in her work. Yet there is a mysterious air, an enigmatic, slightly feline quality about her, which contrasts strangely with her direct, down-to-earth way of speaking.

One senses the inner fires, the inner tensions, and though she keeps her voice low, at times there is in it a note of bitterness. She has none of the typical trappings of show business. She seems almost indifferent to her appearance, her hair brushed casually, her dress plain and unassuming, her only jewelry a gold cross on a chain. But Mary Lou Williams is not a plain woman; with her high cheek bones, reminiscent of the Mayans, she is beautiful. When she becomes involved in her music, her face will set in masklike concentration, her eyes closed, giving an impression of stillness, of being lost to the world, even though her foot is tapping and her strong hands are moving swiftly and surely over the keys. Then suddenly she opens her eyes and smiles, and her face lights up and reflects her spirit, her gaiety, and her lively sense of humor.

A religious woman, Miss Williams was introduced to Roman Catholicism several years ago, along with Dizzy Gillespie’s wife, Lorraine (the Gillespies have long been her staunch friends), and it has evidently given her new strength and courage and a fresh purpose. Mary Lou is ready to do battle with the specters of the past. Strong in her faith, strong in her beliefs, a woman with a cause, a crusader, she rails against the injustices of a materialistic world and deplores musicians who talk against each other more than they help each other. Yet she seems to have had difficulty finding herself, too. In a sense, she is like a child who dreams of a good and perfect world and cannot quite tolerate the fact that it isn’t that way.

At the Hickory House, where she has been ensconced for the last several months, the room casts a haze over her intricately voiced harmonies and, at times, blurs the impact of her changes in dynamics and clouds the clarity of her attack. But there are choice seats around the bar close to the piano where one can almost shut out the noise of the room and concentrate on Mary Lou and her trio. She sits at the piano with a certain dignity, playing with pride and a sureness of touch. Here is a natural showmanship, complete involvement with the music that speaks for her. But still one must listen closely to get the message.

“Anything you are shows up in your music …”

Here is a woman who is conscientious, introspective, sensitive, a woman who, with her quiet manner and at times almost brusque, noncommittal way of speaking, has been misunderstood, thought to be lacking in warmth and compassion. The reverse is true. She feels keenly the various factions, contradictions, inequalities of the music business, wants to help people, to give of herself. A woman vulnerable. A woman hurt so many times she tends to withdraw from, and be suspicious of, others, unless she knows them well. She has an uncanny way of stripping them of any facade, of cutting through the deceit and shallowness of the sycophants. In many ways she is still confused, still searching, still figuring things out for herself, and in this she has been helped a great deal by her friend, the Reverend Anthony Woods

“She has the beauty of being simple without any affectation—simplicity with her is a very deep thing,” Father Woods said. “I have heard her discuss the esthetics of music with great penetration. She seems to have an understanding of what is good, of what is beautiful. She thinks that jazz is becoming superficial, that it’s losing its spiritual feeling. She seems to be aware of a great deal of falsity and affectation, that people are not telling the truth, not saying what they really mean. In her uncomplicated way, she can’t understand how anybody can’t be sincere.

“To me, she is one of the greatest persons I have ever met—really a very great soul. She has exquisite taste, and where there is goodness, she gravitates to it naturally. But she is an emotional thinker, a disorganized thinker, and sometimes she has to sort out her ideas, and that’s where I come in. She’s simple and direct, primitive in a very good sense, and not spoiled by the sophistication around her. I don’t believe that Mary is capable of producing anything except what is good.”

Mary Lou has little business ability and scant knowledge of how to correlate, to direct, her ideas and plans. But her dreams and wishes for the betterment of musicians are logical and sound, and now some of them are just beginning to come true.

Several years ago, she started a thrift shop, the proceeds from which go into her Bel Canto Foundation, which she established to help needy musicians. Now more and more people have begun to hear about it and are giving her gifts of clothing and other donations. Besides these activities, much of Mary Lou’s time is taken up with writing and arranging, plus her daily attendance at mass and care of her sister’s little boy, who usually has the run of her apartment.

Being so busy does not seem to faze her, but it has been a long time since she has “come out” to play in public. She has made a few sporadic appearances in the last few years—twice at New York City’s Wells’ Supper Club and once each at the Embers and the Composer (where I worked opposite her), plus the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. These engagements have been of short duration and have not been too satisfying to her. She seems to feel the pressures of a musician’s life keenly, to become disillusioned, and then, as she expresses it, “goes back in”—back to her other world, to her apartment, to write, teach, and pray.

During her long stays at home, Mary Lou’s talent certainly has not been lying fallow. She has composed a poignant minor blues she calls “Dirge Blues,” which she wrote at the time of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. She is skillful in creating a mood—the feeling of this piece is tragic and gloomy. In its simplicity, it is very touching. She has put out an extended-play record on her own label, Mary records, consisting of three tunes, arranged for 16 voices and her trio: “Summertime,” “The Devil,” and “St. Martin de Porres.” The last tune, with a lyric by Father Woods, achieves an airy, ethereal quality by its voice blending. She has made a single, also on her own label, of “My Blue Heaven.” She makes this warhorse like new again, with a light, witty, Latin-based treatment. Obviously she has lost none of her powers of inventiveness. One has only to listen to her recordings of years ago, “Froggy Bottom,” “Roll ’Em,” and “Cloudy,” to realize how her style has evolved with the years and how she has kept her playing and her thinking contemporary.

She composed one of the first (if not the first) jazz waltzes—“Mary’s Waltz”—many years ago, yet she has never got the proper credit or recognition for this or for any of her several innovations that have been brought to the fore later by other musicians. Her importance, her influence, cannot be denied. She has written many beautiful tunes that are seldom heard, seldom recorded.

It has been said of Mary Lou Williams that she plays in cliches, but she has so much to offer of her own that I feel that her occasional use of cliché is more tongue-in-cheek commentary than lack of inventiveness. She has been labeled by some a fanatic. To others, she is only an extremely dedicated musician. Yet perhaps there is something of the fanatic in her, as seen in her constant search for musicians with whom she can be compatible—in a way, she reminds one of a mother with her children, alternately scolding or praising them, trying to teach them, trying to instill her beliefs in them, expecting great things of them. Yet it is said too that she is a hard taskmistress, demanding and intolerant.

“Anything you are shows up in your music…”

Her feelings about the new freedom in jazz cannot quite be concealed, though she tries to be noncommittal.

“I just haven’t got it figured out,” she said. “To each his own, I guess, but if I can’t hear chords…some sort of melody…well, if they think they’re giving out a good sound, that’s their business. Maybe they think we’re squares? Or else it’s some sort of protest? Take a guy like Coltrane: He knows what he’s doing. But these people without a knowledge of music, it’s like—well, it’s a very neurotic world. People are nervous. Seems like everyone I know is nervous. It must be the pressures of the world. Musicians are very sensitive, and they really don’t know what to do about it. I don’t mean they’re nervous about playing, but in their lives. I try to act relaxed because that’s been my training, but I’m more nervous than anyone you ever knew—inside. Oh, I get mad, sometimes, but I expel it, get it out right away.”

When one is discussing Mary Lou with other musicians, her sense of time always prompts admiration.

“I’ve heard her a few times at the Hickory House, and I’m amazed at her rhythmic approach more than anything else,” said fellow pianist Billy Taylor. “She has the most consistent way of swinging; even with a rhythm section that isn’t quite hanging together, she can make it swing, and this is really remarkable. It seems that no matter what’s going on around her, she can get this thing going. When in doubt—swing! As a pianist, I naturally listen a lot to the rhythm section, and sometimes I’ll notice that they’re not together, and I’ll think to myself, ‘Come on!—let’s give her some support,’ but she’ll be making it anyway. Not as many jazz pianists have this ability as do other instrumentalists. I mean this rhythmic propulsion. She’s not like an Erroll Garner or an Oscar Peterson, who overpower the rhythm section. On the contrary, she plays so subtly she seems to be able to isolate herself and swing, though the others may not be. Considering all the psychological things that go into swinging, she’s even more remarkable. You could wake her up out of a dead sleep, and she’d start swinging without even thinking about it.

“Mary Lou is looking for perfection. On the rare occasions when she had this chemical thing going that can happen between three people, she’s been so excited by it that she wants it all the time. Swinging is so natural to her that she can’t understand why it isn’t necessarily natural to everybody all the time. She figures that they can do it, but they won’t; she thinks to herself, ‘Anybody I hire should be able to do this, so why don’t they?’ Most people associate the verb ‘to swing’ with the degree of loudness that they attain, but she refutes it—she’ll take something pianissimo and swing just as hard as if it were double forte. She’s one of the very few people I know that can do this, consistently swing in any context.”

“Anything you are shows up in your music…”

“She lives in a world all her own, a dream world, and she doesn’t want anything to spoil it,” said her longtime friend and admirer, Hickory House press agent Joe Morgan. “She inspires a great devotion in people—she has many followers, but there are just as many people who look at her askance because they cannot understand her high artistic level. She is so dedicated, and the fact that her standards are high makes her very hard to please. In her accompaniment she wants to hear certain changes behind her, certain lines, certain rhythms, and it’s difficult for a strongly individualistic bass player or drummer, with ideas of his own, to conform to her standards. But her motive, her burning desire is for creation. In a way, she’s like a little child with a doll house, setting up house in the piano, like a little girl on her own chair, not even thinking about what is going on around her. Sometimes she doesn’t hear what you’re saying—doesn’t even see you—because her mind is a million miles away. People don’t understand that if she doesn’t speak to them, she doesn’t mean to be rude…”

Mary Lou herself said, “When people tell me that I’m playing good, and I don’t think I am, I want to run away from them, not speak to them.”

Being so intensely self-critical, she has scant regard for musicians who, in her opinion, lack sufficient dedication to their instruments.

“So many musicians nowadays push too hard, spread themselves too thin, doing all kinds of things when they should be home practicing,” she said. “People who push that hard never really get anywhere, but if you know your instrument, well, you can lay back and let someone pick you out. If you’re doing too many things, there’s no chance for your creativeness to come through.

“When the rhythm section starts composing things on the stand, they’ll push me into composing. But if they are not together, you must let them walk, let them play by themselves, to find out where they are. Then when they’re really tight, you come in and play. But if they’re still not making it, then play another tune, play a ballad. When you hear me play chimes, it’s because the rhythm isn’t right, and you’ve got to bring a section together to let them hear themselves. But if, after this, they still don’t make it, then I’ll start cussing!

“Now that I’m out here, I’m beginning to like it. I haven’t been late for the job, and I haven’t wanted to leave, and that’s unusual for me. Sometimes in the past, I’ve got fed up, and I would walk out and say, ‘You better get yourself another piano player.’ But this time it’s fun for me. Sometimes I’m tired, but I haven’t had that feeling of wanting to give up.…I think this time that I’m out here to stay.”

It is almost as if she sees herself emerging from darkness into the sunlight, to bask in the warmth of feeling generated by friends, admirers and family. Gazing out over the piano, her pleasure in playing comes through clearly.

DB