Mary Lou Williams on Night Lights tonight

[ghost of miles]

This week on Night Lights it's "Music for Peace: the Sacred Jazz of Mary Lou Williams." Williams, the pianist, arranger, and composer whose career in jazz traced a line all the way from the Kansas City scene of the late 1920s through the swing era, bop, the 1950s jazz expatriate community, and an academic job at Duke in the late 1970s, also helped to pioneer sacred jazz in the early 1960s. After converting to Catholicism in the mid-1950s, Williams maintained a low, almost non-existent profile in the jazz world, emerging briefly in 1957 to play with Dizzy Gillespie at Newport. In the early 1960s she began composing jazz pieces with religious underpinnings, culminating in a series of jazz masses. We'll hear material from the recently re-issued mass MUSIC FOR PEACE and the 1964 album BLACK CHRIST OF THE ANDES (which includes guitarist Grant Green and saxophonist Budd Johnson on several tracks). The program airs Saturday night at 11:05 (8:05 California time, 10:05 Chicago time); you can listen to it live or in the Night Lights archives, where it will be posted by Monday afternoon.

Next week: "The Art of Pepper." Art Pepper's mid-1950s Aladdin recordings.

[Big Al]

This one will be a treat tonight! I hope to be able to listen to it!

(Edited to remove a repetitious repetition)

Edited March 26, 2005 by Big Al

[B. Goren.]

Sounds great David. I am waiting for Monday afternoon.

[AfricaBrass]

I'm enjoying the show.

Thanks for posting the California time. Everybody forgets about us.

I actually turned off Pee Wee Russell to listen. That's how much I like your show.

[jazzbo]

Oh Mary Lou!

[ghost of miles]

The Mary Lou program is now online (only under "This Week on 'Night Lights'", not in the archives yet).

Jeff B, thanks much--Pee Wee is stiff competition!

Edited March 29, 2005 by ghost of miles

[Robert J]

[EKE BBB]

Great program, David!

I enjoyed it this morning.