Greetings and welcome to Found Sounds. My name is Daniel T. Peterson. I am multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and researcher in Philadelphia. About 25 years ago I fell in love with The Zodiac Suite composed by Mary Lou Williams. I was already aware of Mary Lou Williams as being an important female jazz musician from before hearing the suite. That introduction was probably from The Music of Black Americans: A History by Eileen Southern and also from watching the documentary A Great Day in Harlem.
Shortly after watching the documentary a copy of the Smithsonian Folkways 50th Anniversary CD reissue of her suite found its way into my hands and into my heart. The compositions reminded me of my favorite collection of modern pianist/composers and I was thrilled by how fresh it still sounded (in 1997?). I collected more of Mary’s recordings after that but never delved deeply into her life or the background of the suite.
Fast forward to 2014. I’m in graduate school at Rutgers Jazz History & Research program. My thesis A Chronology of Long Form Jazz Compositionsfeatured the suite in a chapter. That research expanded my understanding of Mary as an artist. I used her suite to discuss the idea of suites being “large canvases” for the composers most experimental material and an example of how suites rarely are performed multiple times. In Mary’s hands the suite was only performed a few times and rarely in its entirety, but she tried to actualize many of her most ambitious ideas in those few performances.
My love for her music deepened during this research. Although there are several recommended biographies: Soul on Soul by Tammy L. Kernodle, Morning Glory by Linda Dahl and, for children, The Little Piano Girl by Ann Ingalls; I still find her life story to be entirely underrepresented in the story of American Music. I consider her an American Icon and I find it sad that so little is known about her life and her music. Her fame, and her neglect, seems to be more derived from the fact of her gender than her achievements. My writings are meant to express the achievements, and the story, of the suite but will also include some information about who she was at the time when she composed it. During my thesis research I had an idea for a future project, a portrayal of New York City through Mary and her extensive list of the suite’s portrait subjects in 1945. This writing will combine that researcher with my earlier research on the suite.
The Zodiac Suite had renewed interest in 2020, for its 75th Anniversary, and yet the story of the history of the suite is incredibly dramatic and it is still an under appreciated masterwork. I view the suite as time capsule, wrapped in a masterpiece, created by an American master. The suite’s story starts with artistic resolve and proceeds including many other stories: racial integration, a glimpse of Civil Rights movements in 1945, post WWII politics, the first integrated white club in the US, the beginnings of Modern Jazz, Folkways/Asch records, early fusion of Jazz and Classical musics, thieving European Barons, lonely artist sabbaticals and a host of brilliant characters to tell the tale. It’s a story about accomplishment and ingenuity.
This page will collect the story with semi-regular posts, beginning with the history and creation of the suite. Then continuing with the iterations of the suite and each movement. There are dozens of important historical figures and threads to follow and music to hear. Everything will be embedded with a link to offer a more fulfilling experience and to indulge your own explorative inclinations. If you notice a “bad” link please make me aware. And just to be clear Mary Lou’s interest in Astrology is minimal she chose it as an enticing vessel to create with, the rewards here are musical and historical.
Found Sounds 