Mary Lou Williams - Live at the Cookery

The Guardian 80

(Chiaroscuro)

She claimed the unique distinction among jazz musicians of not only having played through nearly 70 years of jazz history, but of keeping up to date the whole time. As a pianist, composer and arranger, starting in 1922, aged 12, Mary Lou mastered blues, boogie-woogie, swing, bebop and even free jazz with remarkable facility. Many bandleaders, including Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, tried to sign her up, but she valued her freedom too much. This session, recorded at a New York club in 1975, bears out her claim. It starts with a spiritual of her own composition and takes in pieces by Ellington, Gershwin, Kurt Weill and Miles Davis. She is accompanied by bassist Brian Torff.