She was the ‘Matriarch of Jazz.’ A Miami music fest honors this legendary Black pianist

A piano was rolled into Mary Lou Williams’ hospital room in North Carolina. The master jazz pianist was writing one last piece of music.

She never finished it. For decades after her death in 1981, Williams’ final creative endeavor was believed to be lost to history. That is, until now.

This month, Miami Beach’s New World Symphony is resurrecting Williams’ recently rediscovered piece and paying homage to the prolific musician’s work and life for it’s annual I Dream A World festival, commemorating Black History Month, the Harlem Renaissance and the contributions of Black musicians.

“I Dream A World: Mary Lou’s Harlem” runs from Feb 4 to 25, with a family-friendly show, a cabaret-style performance, a documentary film screening and several concerts featuring music made by Williams and the jazz musicians she worked with and inspired.

Focusing the festival on Williams’ life was “a great way of really looking at the evolution of Black music,” said Tammy Kernodle, the festival curator and Miami University of Ohio Distinguished Professor in the Department of Music.

Kernodle, who wrote the biography “Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams,” said Williams’ life and career was “the perfect choice” for I Dream A World. Despite the segregation, racism and misogyny she faced, Williams was a talented pianist, composer, arranger, educator and activist.

“How many festivals really center a woman’s voice, a woman’s creative and intellectual labor at the center of the conversation?” Kernodle said. “We thought it was a great way to continue in the vision of what I Dream A World was really birthed out of, telling different stories and amplifying different voices in the concert hall.”

The Life and Times of Mary Lou

Mary Lou Williams was born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs in Atlanta, Georgia in 1910. Her mother was a musician who would sit Mary on her lap as she rehearsed.

According to family lore, Kernodle said, a three-year-old Mary Lou reached for the piano keys and started playing the same melody her mother was rehearsing. Her mother was so shocked, she dropped her.

She became a true child piano prodigy with perfect pitch. Her family moved to Pittsburgh, where she was immersed in the concert culture and became known as “the little piano girl of East Liberty.” At around 7 years old, her teachers would take her to play at the elite Carnegie’s house. By 13, she was performing with major professional bands. At 14, she started her career, touring the country. She later taught herself how to write and arrange music for big bands. And she was great at it.

“She becomes one of the key arrangers that helps define swing music, big band music,” Kernodle said. “Everybody’s playing her music. Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, white bands, Black bands.”

Despite her notoriety, she wasn’t making much money and she no longer felt welcomed in the band scene due to sexism. In 1943, she moved to Harlem. There, she emerged as a solo artist playing at the famed nightclub Cafe Society and composing jazz symphony music. The festival focuses on the music she created during this period and onward.

She thrived in -- and nurtured -- the jazz scene. Her apartment became a hub for jazz musicians to hang out and workshop musical ideas. “What she implants in them really furthers the experimentation in jazz from that point on,” Kernodle said.

But she grew frustrated. Despite her achievements, she wasn’t well paid. She left to Europe for a couple of weeks, but stayed for a couple of years. She suffered a nervous breakdown, and was brought back to the States with the help of some old friends. For three years, she quit music entirely. Williams converted to Catholicism and converted her Harlem apartment into a rehab for addicted musicians in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Her friends and fellow musicians encouraged her to get back into music. “Her ministry is music,” Kernodle said.

Williams’ faith inspired her to write jazz hymns and jazz masses that were performed in Catholic churches throughout the States and in Europe. In 1969, The Vatican commissioned Williams to compose a mass for peace and justice. The piece became known as “Mary Lou’s Mass,” one of her most performed works today. A portion of her mass will be played during New World Symphony’s festival.

Her incredible career and influence earned her several monikers: The greatest woman jazz pianist in the world. The Lady Who Swings the Band. The First Lady of Jazz. The Matriarch of Modern Jazz. A “deluxe tickler of the ivories.”

And, as Kernodle called her, “The Forrest Gump of Jazz.” She was the only musician to play through every era of jazz from the ‘20s to the ‘70s.

“That’s just the breadth of her mind,” Kernodle said. “And the breadth of her creativity.”

Searching for ‘History’

For the last four years of Williams’ life, she was a jazz history professor and artist-in-residence at Duke University.

When she joined Duke in 1977, it was the first time she was paid consistently, the first time she owned a house and the first time she could afford medical care. She was diagnosed with stage four bladder cancer.

“Just as things had come together for her, her life was ending,” Kernodle said.

Williams worked on music until her final moments. She was writing a piece called “History” for Duke University’s wind ensemble, but never finished it. Kernodle had been searching for “History” for years, but “it never seemed to be anywhere.” Maybe somebody threw it away, she thought.

In 2021, Kernodle was at Duke University to give a lecture when she struck up a conversation with her friend professor Anthony Kelley about the piece she was looking for. Kelley knows the man who was the ensemble director at the time and told her he’d do some digging.

Kelley found the sketches, scores, manuscripts and even the rehearsal tapes that were sent to Williams while she was in the hospital, Kernodle said. From there, Kelley began adapting Williams’ work into a form that the orchestra can play.

The last two concerts of the festival, the audience will hear the world premiere of Williams’ “History.” Kernodle described it as a dream come true.

“It’s an honor for us to do it. I also feel like I am honoring her and the other part of her legacy that doesn’t get talked about,” Kernodle said. “To have this full spectrum of who Mary Lou was, especially in the latter part of her life, that is a tremendous thing.”

An ode to jazz

The festival kicks off Feb. 4 with an interactive family-friendly jazz concert conducted by New World Symphony fellow Molly Turner. The show is designed with children ages 4 to 9 in mind featuring music by Williams and Thelonious Monk.

On Feb. 7, New World Center’s Soundscape Park will screen the 2015 documentary “Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band” for free. The next evening, at the The Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater in Overtown, the symphony is performing chamber music by Williams,Valerie Coleman, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and more.

New World’s popular cabaret series returns on the 22nd with an already sold-out performance featuring pianist Aaron Diehl inspired by Cafe Society. The festival closes with two concerts on the 24th and 25th with performances of “History: A Wind Symphony,” selections from Williams’ “Zodiac Suite” and selections from her mass piece. The New World fellows will perform alongside conductor Andrew Grams, Diehl and Grammy Award-nominated jazz singer Carmen Lundy.

Maalik Glover, a first-year New World violin fellow, wasn’t familiar with Williams before preparing for the festival. He said it’s been fun learning about her and diving into this style of music.

“Her music is awesome and super fun to listen to, but not known nearly enough,” Glover said. “It’s always fun to bring music to light that we should have been celebrating for the last few decades or centuries.”

Williams deserves to have her story told to a wider audience, Kernodle said, especially in Florida where the state government has been critical of discussions of race and Black history.

The festival’s goal is to use the concert hall as a space to tell diverse stories. Kernodle hopes audiences listen to the fullness and innovation of jazz culture.

“These artists were blurring lines. They weren’t just put in boxes,” she said. “I hope that people will leave saying, ‘Why didn’t I know her? Why didn’t I know this music?’”

I Dream A World: Mary Lou’s Harlem

When: Feb. 4-25

Where: New World Center (500 17th St., Miami Beach) and The Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater (819 NW Second Ave., Miami)

Info: Tickets and full schedule available online at https://www.nws.edu/harlem.

This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.