Jazz music, especially from the first half of the Twentieth Century, was a boys’ club. With the exception of some notable singers, very few women ever broke into the top levels of jazz musicians (let alone stayed there). One of very few who did was Mary Lou Williams. She was the complete package – someone who could play piano, but also someone who could write music and arrange it for a full band. And for a couple of years in the 1940’s, she recorded several sides with an all-female combo. It goes without saying that those records are interesting, if only for that reason. But they are also quite good.

Mary Lou Williams was born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs on May 8, 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia. Her family soon moved to Pittsburgh, where young Mary proved herself to be a prodigy on the piano. Her black family was not welcomed in their largely white neighborhood – until 6-year-old Mary started coming around to play piano at their parties. She was playing publicly by age 7 and became known around Pittsburgh as “The Little Piano Girl”.

She was playing a major Vaudeville circuit at age 12 (where her name changed to Mary Lou), and by age 13 (in 1923) accompanied one of Duke Ellington’s early bands. She married another member of her Vaudeville band at age 16, and two years later was living in Kansas City while her husband, John Williams, played saxophone for a local band called The Dark Clouds of Joy.

That band was soon renamed The 12 Clouds of Joy under leader Andy Kirk, and Mary found herself as a writer and arranger for the group, as well as the second piano player. She became a star soloist, and became known as “The Lady Who Swings The Band”.

The Kirk band was a durable outfit, and one of few good bands to make the transition from the 1920’s to the swing era of the following decade. Mary Lou Williams was a big reason for that band’s durability – she was a fixture there until 1942, when she departed following her divorce from John Williams.¹

It was during the war years that Williams became a freelance arranger for top bands like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.  She continued her career as a piano soloist and also led a number of small groups with some well-known names like Coleman Hawkins (tenor saxophone) and Vic Dickinson (trombone). But one of her most unique groups was a short-lived one that went by the name “Mary Lou Williams’ Girl Stars”.

Female players were rare in those years, and entire female groups were much more so. There were a few, but most of the time they were gimmicks – like the has-been 1920’s leader Phil Spitalny who fronted his “All Girl Orchestra” that was formed for a 1930’s radio show. But Mary Lou Williams’ group, while it may have been a novelty, made some records that required no apologies to anyone.

There is incredibly little written about this group, which only seems to have existed in four recording sessions during 1945-47. It seems that the combination was the brainchild of jazz writer and record producer Leonard Feather, who thought that an all-girl group might sell some records.

Other than Mary Lou, who were the Girl Stars? Mary Osborne, for one. The 23-year-old Osborne was an early adopter of the electric guitar in jazz, and went on to a long career. There was also vibraphonist Margie Hyams, fresh off a stint with Woody Herman’s band and a member of another Feather-influenced group that is even more obscure – The Hip Chicks. Bea Taylor (bass) and Bridget O’Flynn (drums) rounded out the five-member group for the first recording session in 1945. It is a testament to Williams’ status in 1945 that she, as the only black woman of the group, was also the leader.

The first selection I want to share is from the group’s second recording session, which was July 24, 1946. I lead with this one because it is a great introduction to the group and, having been issued by a major record label, has the best sound quality of the bunch. The tune is called Harmony Grits.²

After a relaxed theme shared by the vibes and the guitar, Mary Osborne’s bright guitar solo is backed by Williams rhythmic backing. It is tempting to say that Williams sounds a lot like Count Basie behind other soloists, but then maybe it is the other way around.³ Osborne then hands off to Hyams, who played a mean set of vibes. Mary Lou takes her own solo, and then joins into the final repeat of the opening riff.

Going back to the group’s first session from 1945⁴ is Blues At Mary Lou’s. Mary Lou had a fluid piano style that could run from stride to boogie woogie to swing and even into early bebop. Here she does great work on this smoldering blues, matched by an excellent solo by Osborne.

My favorite track of the three is this one, also from that first undated 1945 session, a record titled D.D.T. Who could not love a jazz record named for the latest miracle insecticide that was making the mosquito-infested world safe for American G.I.s and the rest of us? Musically, this record is a great example of Mary Lou’s being among the early swing players who were flirting with the modern chords and rhythms of bebop. This is the cleanest copy I could find, which comes direct from a pristine original 78 rpm disc.⁵

Mary Lou starts off the solos by taking two spirited choruses, followed by Osborne and Hyams. I love the way these players jump into the fast tempo and make it swing from start to finish, without a weak spot anywhere during the performance.

Mary Lou Williams’ long and distinguished career cannot (and will not) be summed up in a single blog post, and this tiny window into it will have to suffice for today.⁶ But to summarize, the rest of her story is a unique one. Mary Lou became a mentor to several emerging bebop players and then spent two or three years touring and recording in Europe. But by 1954, she had become both physically and emotionally exhausted. Instead of turning to substance abuse as so many of her generation did, she retired from music, converted to Catholicism and spent the next three years helping other musicians through dark times of substance abuse and other difficulties.

Those around her (including an influential priest) convinced her that a return to music could be a positive thing, and so she did in 1957. She spent most of the 60’s and 70’s composing jazz-infused sacred music (including at least one Mass) and also played live and on record in multiple settings. In the late 70’s she accepted the position of Artist in Residence at Duke University, teaching classes and leading Duke’s jazz ensemble – a position that she held until her 1981 death of bladder cancer, at the age of 71.

Mary Lou Williams was among the few in her generation of jazz who was always pushing forward towards the next thing. And even when the next thing led her away from the music, it then led her back again. She was also one who was constantly breaking new ground by having the skills to make it in what was then very much a man’s world. This short segue with the Girl Stars doesn’t begin to display the breadth of her abilities, but they do show how she could lead a group of good musicians in turning out music that was both of high quality and extremely listenable.

Notes

1. Two examples of Mary Lou’s work with Andy Kirk’s Clouds of Joy are these versions of a tune she wrote and arranged, called Mary’s Idea. The first version was recorded in 1930 and demonstrated and early kind of almost-swing. The second version from 1936 showed Mary Lou’s arranging skills, which completely revamped the piece. Though she did not take a piano solo on the early version, she did on the second.
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2. An excellent Discography that covers Mary Lou Williams’ entire career (which can be found here) wrongly identifies this track as Harmony Girls. The personnel was slightly different from the first session of 1945 by substitution of June Rotenberg (bass) and Rose Gottesman (drums). Rotenberg was another player who was also one of The Hip Chicks.
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3. Both Williams and Basie got their starts in Kansas City at about the same time and spent the first few years of their professional careers under each others’ musical influence in that tight-knit musical community.
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4. The 1945 session is undated in the discography, which is one of the pitfalls of short-lived groups recording outside of the ecosystem of the big record companies. These tracks were released on the obscure Continental label.
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5. The label on the record appears to transpose the instruments of Hyams and O’Flynn. The listing of Hyams on drums and O’Flynn on vibes is almost certainly wrong.
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6. We briefly featured Mary Lou previously via a 1950 recording of Yes, We Have No Bananas in a post that celebrated the centennial of that hit novelty song of 1923. Again, she displayed her amazing skills in updating and modernizing the song. ↩︎