News & Updates — Mary Lou Williams

She was the lady who swings the band. Mary Lou Williams may be not be considered a major jazz star but her contributions as a pianist, arranger, composer, teacher, radio host and historian are immense. She has been a professional since she was a little girl in Pittsburgh and was playing with Duke Ellington's Washingtonians at 13. She married saxophonist John Williams in 1927 and formed a band with him in Memphis before they both joined Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy in Oklahoma City in '29, with whom Mary Lou made her first recordings as the band's pianist, composer...