Revitalizing the Big Band works of Mary Lou Williams

Mary Lou Williams was a Pittsburgh-raised jazz pianist and composer who would go on to become one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time, writing music for Andy Kirk in Kansas City and later Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, as well as informally instructing jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. Williams is a local jazz hero in Pittsburgh, but her music is still somewhat underrepresented in the sonic landscape of the city and the world. This project serves to bring her music to life and light and make her name as recognizable to young jazz musicians as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Miles Davis, and more.

I have been a fan of her work for a long time, and in the past few years in my work as a jazz scholar (PhD student in jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh), I have been reconstructing her big band writings with a goal of creating educational packets that school/college band directors could use to present her work to young jazz students and help Williams gain the recognition she deserves as a jazz legend.

My project is to recreate musical scores from her handwritten notes (working in conjunction with the rights holders, the Mary Lou Williams Foundation) and then produce both published packets for educators and also a series of concerts to promote the extraordinary work of Williams.

Raised money will pay for the time spent carefully transcribing modern readable sheet music from the archival notes and recordings, paying additional transcribers and music editors to double-check the accuracy of the work, and rehearsing and performing the work to create high-quality presentations of the music.