Mary Lou Williams: the Lady Who Swings the Band

You can pretty much count on one finger the jazz musicians who have received Papal commissions. Mary Lou Williams will always be remembered for exceling as a musician-arranger-composer at a time when the music industry was ridiculously male-dominated. Yet, by reconciling and combining jazz with her Catholic faith, Williams shattered just as many musical preconceptions. Williams’ life and music are surveyed in Carol Bash’s Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band (promo here), which premieres on many PBS stations this weekend (but not always at convenient hours).

Williams was a child prodigy born to play the piano, but she first started to make a name for herself in Kansas City, at the height of the town’s hipness. Most musicians were loath to play with women, but her husband, alto and baritone player John O. Williams knew she could swing. When his boss, territory bandleader Andy Kirk found himself caught without a piano player, he reluctantly called her in to sub. Needless to say, she basically made Andy Kirk and the Clouds of Joy. Naturally, he resented her for it, but the producers were adamant—no Williams, no contract.

Eventually, Williams would separate from both Kirk and her husband, striking out on her. Despite her talent and reputation, she would experience all the ups and downs of the jazz musician’s life, except it was always even more challenging for Williams—until she heard what can be rightly described as her calling. Finding spiritual renewal in the Catholic Church, Williams was encouraged to use her musical gifts, but in a way that expressed her deepening faith.

It is great to see Bash fully explores the significance and influence of Williams’ sacred music. She also gives the jazz legend her due as an entrepreneur, self-producing her releases on her own Mary label, long before that became the industry norm. However, the film leaves some unanswered questions regarding her relationship with John O. According to his obit, he also played with the Cootie Williams band and co-wrote “Froggy Bottom,” which suggests he might be one of those unfairly overlooked kind of guys.

Of course, the music is the most important thing in Lady Who Swings. Bash incorporates some all-star performances, appropriately including Geri Allen, who played the Mary Lou Williams figure in Robert Altman’s unfairly panned Kansas City. Wycliffe Gordon also leads a big band and Carmen Lundy lends her vocal chops and elegant presence, but Bash cuts off them off before they really get started. That is a shame, because just about all of us interested in Williams will want to hear their take on her music. Maybe the concert interludes are allowed to go on longer in a more extensive festival cut.

Indeed, fifty-four minutes on Mary Lou Williams is certainly economical, but it only scratches the surface and whets the appetite. Nevertheless, Bash makes sure viewers leave with the right take-aways. If you still don’t understand Williams was Catholic who could still swing hard after watching her film, you have serious retention issues. Brisk, informative, and respectful of Williams’ Catholicism, Mary Lou Williams: the Lady Who Swings the Band will leave audiences wanting more, but what we have is still definitely worth seeing. Highly recommended, it airs Sunday night (4/12) in Salt Lake, Monday night (4/13) in LA, Wednesday night (4/15) in San Francisco, and in the early Monday morning a.m. (4/13) in New York/New Jersey (a more rational afternoon time-slot was announced and canceled, but hopefully it can be rescheduled, so check those local listings).

Fundamental Blues

Last night I spent five hours in church, and I doubt Old Scratch took any satisfaction from the fact that jazz was being played nearly the entire time. After regular jazz vespers, the Jazz Foundation of America had a moving tribute to their co-founder Herb Storfer and Chairman Dr. Leo Corbie, with beautiful music from Dr. Billy Taylor, Bertha Hope, Jimmy Owens, and others.

Coincidentally, I have been following some pitched internet skirmishes in recent weeks regarding Bob Jones University’s ban on jazz. (It seems like fun in general is banned at BJU, but this debate only focused on jazz.) While I’m sympathetic to the general cause of jazz there, I doubt intruding into their debate as an outsider would have been helpful, but it led to some thoughts here.

Regardless of what you think of the institution and its troubling past policies, it does have a certain reputation (to put it mildly), that will likely make employment particularly difficult for its music majors. Classical symphony positions are extremely scarce, difficult even for graduates of elite Northeast conservatories to attain. If they had some instruction in jazz, BJU grads would actually have a better foundation for real-world musical employment, like backing up singers, pit orchestras, studio work, and maybe even their own gigs. They could also network within rehearsal big bands. Jazz instruction might not make you rich (usually far from it), but it does give graduates more employment opportunities within music that really are not available to the solely conservatory trained.

Much was made in the debate of jazz’s red-light district roots, which is a historic fact. However, it is not like Jelly Roll Morton voluntarily decided of all the places in the world to play, he would choose a bordello. Early twentieth century African-American musicians in New Orleans had to take their opportunities where they could find them, even in Storyville. Such arguments do a particular disservice to the New Orleans jazz pioneers, who were almost entirely devout, God-fearing individuals. Hymns like “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” were in the standard repertoire of every traditional New Orleans musician, and nothing symbolizes the birthplace of jazz more than the stately jazz funeral, culminating with “The Saints.”

I am not an Evangelical Christian (more of a Lutheran with Catholic inclinations), but I think they are often misrepresented by the media. Pointing out this debate will only confirm some of those prejudices, but the BJU policy on jazz does not help anyone. Should they ever reverse policy though, it is hard to think who would be a good fit for the jazz chair. (New York hipster joins Evangelical faculty—could be the basis of a good sitcom.) Still, I’m always in favor of more employment for jazz artists.

Evidently, BJU agrees with Oprah and Letterman on one thing—unfortunately that would be their low regard for jazz. The jazz partisans are probably right that this policy costs BJU potential Christian music students. In truth, it is America’s churches that are proving to be one of the few growing markets for the music. St. Peter’s may have been the first church to regularly feature jazz in a worship service, but it is no longer alone. Years ago, Ellington and Brubeck proved that jazz can make a powerful statement of praise. Currently, many younger jazz artists are following in that tradition. For now, BJU students are just missing out on something good.

The Light and the Gates

When taking stock of jazz’s sacred music this Easter weekend, it became apparent that two of Dave Brubeck’s more important LPs are essentially unavailable on CD, despite his stature and commercial success. Surely, The Gates of Justice and the double LP The Light in the Wilderness, his Decca releases recorded with Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, are important milestones in Brubeck’s discography, regardless of their initial commercial reception.

The original Gates remains unavailable digitally, although a new version was recorded on Naxos in the 1990’s. Of course, it just is not the same session. The first recording is considered much darker, while the second omits some elements, including a love-it-or-hate-it organ solo.

Light was available on CD at one time from exclusively from one of the record-of-the-month clubs, but since most people are terrified of dealing with them for fear of being blitzed with CDs they did not order, it in effect remains out-of-print. Like Gates, Light is an ambitious composition for symphonic brass and choir, but it features more pronounced jazz interludes for Brubeck’s trio.

Both sessions are heavy stuff, and would never reach the audience that Take Five has. Their dated cover art does not help either. They do represent a pivotal point in Brubeck’s career, so it is still strange that a turntable is required to hear them. It was to pursue such large scale compositions that Brubeck temporarily put his popular quartet on hold. They also led to further such sacred works, including To Hope! A Celebration, a jazz Mass commissioned by Our Sunday Visitor. As America, the National Catholic Weekly explained, the experience would ultimately have a great effect on his life:

“The ‘Our Father’ was not listed among the parts given to Brubeck to set to music. When the Rev. Ron Brassard heard the completed Mass, he noticed the oversight and pressed Brubeck to wrote music for it as well. Brubeck’s emphatic response was that he was tired and going on vacation with his family. Something, however, stirred in the composer. On the second night of his vacation he dreamed an entire Our Father: ‘I jumped out of bed and wrote it down, because I knew its simplicity was working and I didn’t want it to get away from me…[ellipsis in America] and it’s so simple; but I heard the choir and the orchestration, everything.” The experience had such a profound effect on Brubeck, he became a Catholic. That very night he said to himself, ‘If this is what’s happening, I think I’ll join the church.”

A biographer could well argue that Hope followed a logical course set in motion by the spiritual searching of Gates and Wilderness. In his notes to Wilderness Brubeck wrote:

“I am not affiliated with any church. Three Jewish teachers have been a great influence on my life—Irving Goleman, Darius Milhaud, and Jesus. I am a product of Judaic-Christian thinking. Without the complications of theological doctrine I wanted to understand what I had inherited in this world—both problems and answers—from that cultural heritage.”

Years later, Brubeck would receive the Laetare Medal, considered “the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics.” Light and Wilderness would be a nice collector’s set, making an important, if uneven period of his career available to his fans and students.