Zodiac Suite

Williams began writing Zodiac Suite in 1942 after borrowing a book on astrology. She was interested in the idea of writing music inspired by the star signs of her musician friends. The first three compositions were for "Scorpio", "Gemini" and "Taurus".[9] Ellington's extended jazz piece Black, Brown and Beige had given Williams the idea to create an orchestral work that reached outside of jazz music norms. The suite was also influenced by classical composers such as Bartók. Williams explained that the Zodiac Suite was "the beginning of a real fulfilment of one of my ambitions".[8]

Williams had hoped to finish the suite for a live performance on the radio station WNEW in 1945 with Al Lucas on bass and Jack Parker on drums. By the time of the performance, she still only had compositions for three star signs. The remaining nine signs were improvised live on air.[10] The performance received a positive reception and Williams subsequently recorded Zodiac Suite with the same trio for Asch records.[11][12]

Most pieces in the suite were dedicated to or influenced by other performers and their star sign.[13][14] "Aries" was for Ben Webster and Billie Holiday; "Taurus" for Duke Ellington; "Gemini" for Shorty Baker; "Cancer" for Lem Davis; "Leo" for Vic Dickenson; "Libra" for Art Tatum, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane; "Scorpio" for Ethel Waters, Katherine Dunham and Al Lucas; "Sagittarius" for Eddie Heywood; "Capricorn" for Pearl Primus and Frankie Newton; "Aquarius" for Josh White and Eartha Kitt; and "Pisces" for Al Hall and Barney Josephson.[13]

While Williams appeared pleased with the recording for Asch, she had ideas for new ways to perform the suite.[15] She began working on arranging the pieces for larger bands in a concert-hall environment. At the time, Williams had a personal relationship with Milton Orent, an arranger for television network NBC.[16] With Orent, Williams listened to and discussed the work of modernist composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Stravinsky. She credited Orent with influencing her musical growth.[17] Orent worked with Williams on the arrangements but the extent of his input is unclear.[16] The revised score gave more opportunities for improvisation.[18]

Williams performing at Café Society, where she worked before the Town Hall concert

At the end of 1945, Williams performed Zodiac Suite at Town Hall with Edmond Hall's chamber-jazz group.[19] Williams had to borrow money to stage the concert. The work required to prepare for the concert was so extensive that Williams took leave from her job at Café Society to work on it full-time.[20] The performance on 31 December was to a half-empty venue. The musicians were under-rehearsed and struggled with the music's improvisational nature. Williams' piano playing lacked its usual vibrancy, and Orent, who was conducting, lost a page of music which confused the musicians. Critical reaction to the concert was split. Williams herself was severely upset with the performance, and was ill for the following week.[21][22] The concert was recorded but the tapes were missing when Williams went to retrieve them. They are suspected to have been stolen by the Danish jazz enthusiast Timme Rosenkrantz for use on pirate records in Europe.[23][24] Journalist Chris Albertson noted that Rosenkrantz released music from Zodiac Suite on the Selmer record label using different song titles. Williams was never paid for this release.[25] The concert was eventually released in full in the 1990s.[26]

In June 1946, Williams performed Zodiac Suite with a 70-member symphony orchestra at New York's Carnegie Hall after being approached by the concert promoter Norman Granz.[27][28] Because of the expense of a concert on this scale, Williams again had to pay for some of the organisational expenses.[27] The German jazz critic Dan Morgenstern considers the Carnegie Hall concert to be the first time a symphony orchestra performed jazz compositions.[9] Williams was happy with the performance. However, the string section performed poorly, and, according to William's biographer Linda Dahl, the suite "collapsed under the weight of a full orchestra".[29] The concert was taped, and Williams took precautions to avoid losing the recording as before. She arranged for Rosenkrantz, whom Williams at the time did not suspect of the Town Hall theft, to guard the tapes. The tapes went missing with Rosenkrantz again suspected of purloining them.[30] Working on the Zodiac Suite took a physical and emotional toll on Williams, and she subsequently took a break from performing.[31]

Williams performed parts of Zodiac Suite with a trio in 1947 for an National Association for the Advancement of Colored People benefit concert at Syracuse University.[32] She had initially been invited by a Syracuse student to perform a symphonic version of the suite, but her fee for this was too high for the university's budget.[33]

In 1957, she performed with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie at the Newport Jazz Festival a medley of three songs from the suite ("Virgo", "Libre" and "Aries") that was included on an album of the concert.[34][35] This was one of Williams's first public performances in many years.[36] With the jazz arranger Melba Liston, Williams planned an arrangement of the suite for the pianist Thelonious Monk but the project never materialised.[37] In 1969, Williams performed music from the suite on Vatican Radio.[38]

Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham and Talley Beatty all choreographed dances to sections of the suite in the 1940s.[31] The American musician Geri Allen, who played Williams in the film Kansas City, recorded Zodiac Suite Revisited with the Mary Lou Williams Collective in 2006.[39][40][41] In 2021, Zodiac Suite was performed by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Tito Muñoz, and by the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra.[11][39][42] The same year, the pianist Chris Pattishall released an interpretation of the suite called Zodiac.[11][43]