Mary Lou Williams Presents: Black Christ of Andes

Mary Lou Williams | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 27, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Smithsonian Folkways
• ASIN: B0001L3LGS
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,098 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #46 in Music > World Music > South & Central America > Andes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Generally regarded as our greatest female jazz musician, Mary Lou Williams composed and arranged for Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie and was an important influence on fellow pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. Williams converted to Catholicism in the mid '50s, and in 1962 she began work on Black Christ of the Andes, the centerpiece of which is a hymn dedicated to the 16th century Afro-Peruvian priest, St. Martin de Porres, featuring a chorus by the Ray Charles Singers. In many ways, this three-part work anticipates Ellington's Sacred Concerts. The rest of the disc blends the sacred and the secular while highlighting Williams mostly in trio settings (often including the MJQ bassist Percy Heath). Williams embraces the whole history of jazz, from the funereal, John Kennedy tribute "Dirge Blues" and the Latin-styled "Koolbonga" to the soul-jazz-tinted treatment of "My Blue Heaven" and her avant-garde solo, "A Fungus A Mungus." --Eugene Holley, Jr.

Product Description

Mary Lou Williams, the "First Lady of Jazz," was an extraordinary pianist, composer, arranger, and master of blues, boogie woogie, stride, swing, and be-bop. Williams’ complex harmonies and brilliant phrasing, rooted in spirituals and blues, border on the avant-garde. Black Christ is both a powerful secular statement and a call to the divine. Duke Ellington said, "[She was] beyond category - a pianist who sums up in herself the full essence of jazz and expresses it with skill and perception that few other jazz musicians have even approached."

Originally issued in 1964, this CD contains an additional 4 unreleased tracks, new extensive liner notes, and historic photos. 53 minutes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars jazzmind, July 17, 2005

By 

Scot Danforth "jazzmind" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mary Lou Williams Presents: Black Christ of Andes (Audio CD)

Duke Ellington famously said that if music sounds good, it is good. Ellington had little interest in dividing jazz from other forms of music, and his heir in this regard was Mary Lou Williams. In her later career, she was determined to show that jazz, gospel, blues, boogie-woogie, and so on can all have common roots. This recording is a concept album for this thesis--and it is brilliant. She is also Ellington's heir at the keyboard: never overplaying, always aware of underlying harmonic structure, she swings like the devil. Even simple material, like her version of "It Ain't Necessarily So" here, gets a new Williams meter (6/8, rather than 4/4) and becomes uniquely her own. Let Mary Lou's synthesis grow on you--you just might find religion!