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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars
8 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Swingin' stuff from Mary Lou
20 July 2003
By Candace Scott
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD
I first heard Mary Lou Williams when she did a guest spot in 1978 during Benny Goodman's 40th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall. Her version of Roll 'Em (which she also wrote) was an incredible highlight of that evening. Since then I have purchased many of Williams' records and this is perhaps her best. She always sounded better live and her swingin' style was best showcased in front of a live audience. It's impossible to listen to her play and sit still. Just try it... it's not something the average person could do without going stark ravin' mad.
The versions here of such standards as Stormy Weather and St. Louis Blues have power, style and swing. Mary Lou's incredible jazz virtuosity at the piano is a total delight. Her thumping style will set toes tapping for as long as these discs keep spinning. The only clunker in the bunch is an uptempo version of Surrey with the Fringe On Top, a very curious selection for a jazz artist to choose. But aside from this small complaint, the rest of the album shines. Highly recommended addition to your jazz collection.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
jazzmind
17 July 2005
By Scot Danforth
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD
Duke Ellington famously said that if music sounds good, it is good. Ellington had little interest in dividing jazz from other forms of music, and his heir in this regard was Mary Lou Williams. In her later career, she was determined to show that jazz, gospel, blues, boogie-woogie, and so on can all have common roots. This recording is a concept album for this thesis--and it is brilliant. She is also Ellington's heir at the keyboard: never overplaying, always aware of underlying harmonic structure, she swings like the devil. Even simple material, like her version of "It Ain't Necessarily So" here, gets a new Williams meter (6/8, rather than 4/4) and becomes uniquely her own. Let Mary Lou's synthesis grow on you--you just might find religion!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent!
24 Dec 2002
By Cathy Austin
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD
This is a great recording and a welcome surprise for me in 2002! Mary goes through the whole history of jazz in 13 tunes. You can hear spirituals, ragtime, Kansas City Swing and bop. If you want to know what swing is all about just listen to this recording. It's almost impossible to keep your head from swinging and bopping. I enjoyed her beautiful rendition of "It Ain't Necessarily So", a slow tune where you can really feel the blues. Her playing of "St. Louis Blues" is well worth the price of the CD, she tears the piano up. I wish I was there back in 1977.
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4.8 out of 5 stars
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