Mary Lou Williams: Night Life

Mary Lou Williams is probably the most important female African-American jazz pianist. Williams was also a fine songwriter and arranger, and she worked with major figures in jazz, including Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Williams was born Mary Scruggs in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1910. 

Williams played with Duke Ellington’s band, The Washingtonians, in 1925. By the late twenties, she was a pianist in Andy Kirk’s band, “The Twelve Clouds of Joy.” While with Kirk, Williams supplied the band with the songs “Cloudy” and “Little Joe from Chicago.” Williams made her first recordings with Kirk in 1929/30 and recorded the piano solo sides, “Drag ‘Em” and “Night Life.” These solo sides would see Williams become a national name and brought her to the attention of Benny Goodman, Earl Hines, and Tommy Dorsey, who all hired her as an arranger. 

Williams became involved in the bebop movement of the forties and wound up as a mentor of sorts for the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Her apartment became a famous salon where the architects of modern jazz gathered to explore new harmonic frontiers. 

In the Sixties, Williams underwent a deep spiritual conversion, which drastically shifted the direction of her art. She began recording religious jazz music, seamlessly merging sacred liturgical texts with avant-garde jazz structures. She continued recording prolifically until her death in 1981. 

Williams's vast musical evolution can be heard across several essential album releases and historic recording blocks that belong in any serious 20th-century jazz library. 

Essential Album Review: Zodiac Suite (1945)

Originally released as "Signs of the Zodiac" and later known definitively as the Zodiac Suite, this 1945 masterpiece is one of the earliest and most ambitious conceptual works in jazz history. Williams composed twelve distinct avant-garde movements, each dedicated to a fellow musician born under that specific astrological sign (including tracks for Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk). The recording marks a historic milestone, bridging classical structural forms with jazz improvisation. It remains a staggering testament to her genius as a composer and a singular achievement in mid-century American music. 

• Released: 1945 
• Label: Asch Records / Folkways Records 
• Producer: Moses Asch 
• Core Layout: Mary Lou Williams (Solo Piano / Trio) 
• Key Tracks: "Aries", "Taurus", "Libra" 

Essential Album Review: Black Christ of the Andes (1964)

Representing the pinnacle of her late-career spiritual era, Black Christ of the Andes is a breathtaking exploration of religious jazz media. The album features a brilliant mixture of choral arrangements, soul-stirring blues, and advanced modal piano tracking. Dedicated to Saint Martin de Porres, the title track features an intricate vocal choir backing that stunned contemporary critics. It stands as a towering, highly reverent work that fundamentally redefined how sacred music could interact with modern jazz improvisation. 

• Released: 1964 
• Label: Mary Records / Folkways 
• Producer: Mary Lou Williams 
• Core Personnel: Mary Lou Williams (Piano), Percy Heath (Bass), George Duvivier (Bass), The George Gordon Singers 
• Key Tracks: "Black Christ of the Andes", "Anima Christi", "Dirge Blues" 

Essential Historical Collection: Chronological Classics (1929–1940)

To fully appreciate Williams's rapid rise to national prominence during the swing era, the various Chronological Classics archival collections are indispensable. These compilations neatly aggregate her early, ground-breaking session work with Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy alongside her historical 1930 solo sides. Listening to these tracks in sequence reveals the exact technical blueprint that made her an elite, highly sought-after arranger for swing legends like Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. 

• Compilation Era: 1929–1944 
• Label: Classics Records (France) 
• Core Personnel: Mary Lou Williams, Andy Kirk, Harold Baker, Ben Thigpen 
• Key Historical Tracks: "Drag 'Em", "Night Life", "Walkin' and Swingin'" 

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Skip James: Im So Glad

Nehemiah Curtis James was born near Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1902. James was raised just south of the Mississippi Delta near Bentonia, on the Whitehead plantation, where his mother was the plantation cook. James’s friends named him “Skippy” due to his peculiar style of dancing. Skip’s father, a guitar-playing bootlegger, abandoned his family when Skip was a young boy. 

In 1931, after years of work as a labourer, bootlegger, and sometimes musician, James entered a singing competition at a store in Jackson, Mississippi. James had just begun to play his song, “Devil Got My Woman,” when he was awarded the prize—a train ticket to Grafton, Wisconsin, and a recording session with Paramount Records. 

Paramount was famous for the poor quality of its recordings, and sadly, many fine performances were poorly recorded by the label, including those by James. James recorded several songs with guitar during his first session, and eight piano songs during the second session. James recalls recording 26 sides in all, though only 18 have been found. Among the classic recordings he made at those sessions were “Devil Got My Woman,” “I’m So Glad,” “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues,” “22-20 Blues,” and “Special Rider Blues.” 

James was only paid 40 dollars for his efforts, and as the recordings were made during the height of the depression, only a few sides were ever released. Disillusioned with the music business, James quit and turned to religion. Little is known about his life during the 33 years between his Paramount recordings and his rediscovery in the mid-Sixties. 

James played his first show in 33 years at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. His performance was a brilliant one and it seemed that his powers were still completely intact despite his long layoff. Many believed that James' performance at the festival topped all others. 

Despite his huge popularity at Newport, James did not have a recording deal. When Cream recorded “I'm So Glad” on their Fresh Cream album, James, now ailing, used his royalties to get into a good hospital in Washington, DC, where he could have the surgery that extended his life by three years. 

Essential Album Review: Today! (1966)

Released two years after his triumphant rediscovery, "Today!" remains a towering achievement in the 1960s folk-blues revival era. Recorded under crystal-clear studio conditions, this LP allowed modern high-fidelity equipment to fully capture the haunting, ethereal beauty of James's complex D-minor cross-tuning guitar style and his chilling, piercing falsetto vocals. The record features definitive, mature reinterpretations of his bleak 1931 catalog alongside sweeping, spiritual performances. It stands as a vital masterpiece, showcasing an uncompromised master delivering rural acoustic blues with absolute authority to a new generation of listeners. 

• Released: 1966 
• Label: Vanguard Records 
• Producer: Maynard Solomon 
• Core Layout: Skip James (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano) 
• Key Tracks: "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues", "Cherry Ball Blues", "Special Rider Blues" 

Essential Album Review: Devil Got My Woman (1968)

Serving as his final complete studio album statement before his passing, the 1968 release "Devil Got My Woman" cements his legacy as an irreplaceable titan of the Bentonia blues tradition. This tracking captures James exploring an intense, intensely somber emotional space, backed by his masterful, intricate fingerpicking patterns and precise, rhythmic piano work. The title track, beautifully re-recorded here, possesses a stark, spine-chilling power that remains unmatched in acoustic media. It is an essential, deeply reverent document of an artist looking back across decades of hardship with stark, poetic clarity. 

• Released: 1968 
• Label: Vanguard Records 
• Producer: Vanguard Studios 
• Core Layout: Skip James (Solo Acoustic Performance) 
• Key Tracks: "Devil Got My Woman", "Sickbed Blues", "Lorenzo Blues" 

Essential Archural Collection: Complete 1931 Paramount Recordings

To fully comprehend how radically advanced James's style was compared to his contemporaries, his historic 1931 Paramount sessions are essential audio textbook items. While the original shellac pressings suffered heavily from the label's notoriously cheap, scratchy surface textures, modern digital restorations reveal a hauntingly brilliant architectural blueprint of acoustic blues. His technical speed on "I'm So Glad" and the distinct boogie-woogie structural foundation of "22-20 Blues" (which later inspired Robert Johnson's "32-20 Blues") remain foundational pillars of 20th-century American music theory. 

• Recording Era: February 1931 
• Label: Paramount Records (Grafton, WI) 
• Producer: Arthur Laibly 
• Key Historical Tracks: "Devil Got My Woman", "I'm So Glad", "22-20 Blues" 

James died in 1969 in Philadelphia, leaving behind an immortal musical legacy. 

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