Zodiac Suite

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Zodiac Suite
Studio album by Mary Lou Williams

Publication
(s)

1945

Label (s) Asch Recordings , Folkways Records

Format (s)

Shellac / LP / CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

12/17

running time

42:23 (LP)

occupation

production

Moses Ash

Studio (s)

New York City

Zodiac Suite is a jazz album by Mary Lou Williams recorded on June 29, 1945 in New York City. It was released in the same year as a series of shellac records on the label Asch Recordings by Moses Asch and was re-released as an LP in 1975 on his label Folkways Records .

Parts of the suite of the same name were, in a large-format arrangement, the first jazz composition to be performed by the New York Philharmonic .

The album

The jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981) wrote the first parts of the Zodiac Suite in 1942 while she was with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy ; she had previously borrowed an astrology book from another member of the band . In 1945 she announced to the listeners of her radio program on the broadcaster WNEW that a composition based on the various zodiac signs of the zodiac would premiere in the next twelve weeks . Her starting point is music that embodies every temperament and characteristic of the zodiac signs, she wrote in 1975 in the liner notes of the album:

I have always understood astrology as one of the influences that determines the fate of human beings, and here I have given the zodiac signs the musical interpretation that I feel is justified.

However, since she did not understand much about astrology, as she admitted at the same time in conversation with Dan Morgenstern , she decided to choose jazz musicians born under the different zodiac signs as inspiration for the different parts of the suite.

Initially, she had only completed the Scorpio , Gemini and Taurus parts . After she had written the first three tracks, she broke off: "I couldn't write any more, my inspiration had left me," she later told jazz critic John S. Wilson. She was only able to present these three parts as finished compositions in her Sunday program at WNEW. Nevertheless, she presented another zodiac sign Sunday after Sunday, based on an improvisation in which Al Lucas and Jack “The Bear” Parker , her rhythm section from the New York Café Society , where she had been involved since 1944, ensured her without grades followed; these compositions were created during the game. Stylistically she moves between stride piano and contemplative rubato fantasies; In doing so, she explored topics that had been in her compositional notebook for years, wrote Tom Moon . Because the audience responded enthusiastically to the show, Williams recorded the twelve numbers in June 1945 for Asch's label.

She recorded the versions recorded for Moses Asch as a pianist with bass accompaniment (Al Lucas) as well as in a trio with Lucas and Jack “The Bear” Parker. Taurus was written as early as 1944, and Libra dedicated it to Dizzy Gillespie , Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk . Aries dedicated it to Ben Webster and Billie Holiday ; Taurus with his "Jungle Boogie" was for Duke Ellington .

Other versions

Scorpio had already reworked Williams for a joint work for three pianos (with Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell) in 1944. At the end of 1945 she wrote, allegedly together with her childhood friend, bassist Milt Orent , an orchestral arrangement for a concert that took place in New York's Town Hall on December 31, 1945. There the suite was interpreted by a chamber orchestra that included jazz musicians like Edmond Hall as well as classical musicians; Guest soloists were Ben Webster and the soprano Hope Foye. The recordings of this performance, which Asch also wanted to publish, disappeared; Timme Rosenkrantz had acquired the recordings and published them in Denmark on his Baronet label; Williams never received royalties for this. It was not until the 1990s that the townhall recordings were regularly released on record.

The critics received her orchestral work very ambiguously; for many, like Paul Bowles , it was “neither fish nor meat” because it fused jazz and classical music. Nevertheless, Milt Orent suggested composing a large-format arrangement. According to the music historian Eva Weissweiler , she composed the first of her symphonic works, a suite for woodwinds, jazz winds and rhythm instruments. In June 1946, three movements of the work by the seventy-piece Carnegie Pops Orchestra , which consisted of members of the New York Philharmonic, were performed at Carnegie Hall .

Track list

Mary Lou Williams in her apartment with (left to right) Dizzy Gillespie , Tadd Dameron , Hank Jones and Milton Orent . Photo: William P. Gottlieb (New York, 1947)
  • Mary Lou Williams: Zodiac Suite (Asch Recordings (Asch 620/621), Folkways 32844)
  1. Aries - 1:48
  2. Taurus - 2:33
  3. Gemini - 2:08
  4. Cancer - 2:31
  5. Leo - 1:43
  6. Virgo - 2:26
  7. Libra - 2:09
  8. Scorpio - 3:01
  9. Sagittarius - 1:50
  10. Capricorn - 2:38
  11. Aquarius - 3:38
  12. Pisces - 2:31
  13. Aries - 2:17
  14. Cancer - 2:36
  15. Virgo - 2:44
  16. Scorpio - 3:10
  17. Aquarius - 2:40
  • All compositions are by Mary Lou Williams.

Editorial notes

The twelve tracks on the LP, released in 1975, were originally released in the form of two albums, each with three shellac records as Asch 620 and 621 on Moses Asch's label. In 1975 they were reissued on his Folkways label (32844). Tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 11 were alternate takes and initially unreleased.

reception

In 1945, Zodiac Suite was named "Album of the Month" in the Record Review.

Jonathan Widran rates the album with four stars in Allmusic and describes it as an intriguing series of interpretations of each sign of the zodiac . The individual parts of the suite can be understood as a consideration of a development without knowing about its astrological background, the charm of the recording makes the astonishment about how and why Williams processes certain zodiac signs in this unique way.

Tom Moon included the suite in his 1000 Records to Hear Before You Die , as did the Recording Industry Association of America in their Songs of the Century list . The downbeat wrote: "Irresistible themes ... blending sophistication and intimacy". JazzTimes called it "an extended work of great depth and complexity and diversity."

Geri Allen

Zodiac Suite: Revisited

After Dizzy Gillespie had performed parts of the Zodiac Suite , namely the tracks Virgo, Libra and Aries at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957 (appeared on the Verve album Dizzy Gillespie at Newport ), the pianist Geri Allen took part in 2004 with her Mary Lou Williams Collective the album Zodiac Suite: Revisited, with the support of the Mary Lou Williams Foundation, reinterpreted the entire suite, with Buster Williams on bass and Billy Hart (and Andrew Cyrille on two tracks) on drums.

literature

  • Linda Dahl: Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams . University of California Press, Berkeley 1999

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New York Magazine Apr. 18, 1977, p. 109.
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Linda Dahl Morning Glory. P. 159.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Liner Notes of the album (PDF; 4.4 MB)
  4. ↑ In Billy Taylor's opinion , Williams was already working on the suite from 1937/38. See Ira Gitler : Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s. P. 104.
  5. ↑ Linda Dahl Morning Glory. P. 160f.
  6. ↑ a b 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.1000recordings.com
  7. ↑ Linda Dahl Morning Glory. P. 161.
  8. ↑ a b Review of the album Zodiac Suite by Jonathan Widran at Allmusic (English)
  9. ↑ a b c Review of the album The Mary Lou Williams Collective - Zodiac Suite: Revisited at JazzTimes
  10. ^ Robin Kelley: Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. P. 93.
  11. ↑ See Billboard, December 22, 1945.
  12. ↑ See Dahl Morning Glory. Pp. 168-171.
  13. ^ First on Vintage Jazz Classics VJC 1305; see. Dahl Morning Glory. P. 410. The work is also available on CD under the title Town Hall '45: The Zodiac Suite . See Town Hall '45: The Zodiac Suite on Allmusic (English)
  14. ↑ See Dahl Morning Glory. P. 167f.
  15. ^ Eva Weissweiler: Female composers from the Middle Ages to the present: A history of culture and impact in biographies and work examples. P. 391.
  16. ↑ Jacek Brzozowski: A scholarly overview of the role of women in Afro-American music in the USA from its beginnings to 1945. P. 5.
  17. ^ 78discography.com
  18. ↑ Information about the album at Discogs
  19. ^ Dahl Morning Glory. P. 173.
  20. ↑ Songs of the Century on CNN ( Memento from May 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ^ Zodiac Suite at Folkways
  22. ^ Review of the album The Mary Lou Williams Collective - Zodiac Suite: Revisited on All About Jazz