Williams: Zodiac Suite

MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021
8:00 PM

Aaron Dhiel
Da Camera Live Stream
Facebook

Free (registration required)
https://www.dacamera.com/?event=aaron-diehl&event_date=2021-03-23

It is not hyperbole to say that Mary Lou Williams is one of the major jazz composers, in the Morton/Ellington/Monk/Mingus league (which makes her one of the major American composers, period). There is only one reason she is not as famous as they are, and it has to do with her lack of Y chromosomes. Out of all the current reclamation projects of insufficiently performed female composers, the Williams project seems to me the most crucial. Her music demands to be heard and appreciated. The Zodiac Suite is probably her magnum opus: it's usually heard as a mix of piano solos and piano-bass-drums trios; there are also versions for chamber and full orchestra that tonight's performer, Aaron Dhiel, is shopping around. Tonight Dhiel will play it solo — and there are few current pianists better suited to the task than this suave incisive stylist, rooted in classical as well as jazz but fully in the jazz tradition. I promise you that the Williams will make the Copland blues derivation also on the program seem weak.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pendergast: 1-1/2 oz. Bourbon, 3/4 oz. sweet Vermouth, and 1/2 oz. Bénédictine, with 2 dashes of Angostura bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a rocks glass neat — WITHOUT ice. Garnish with a lemon twist.