''Zodiac Suite'' is a series of 12 pieces of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

music written by the American jazz pianist and composer

Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and ...

and first performed in 1945. The suite makes use of elements of classical music alongside jazz, and Williams was influenced by

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

when writing and arranging it. Each song in the suite is inspired by an

astrological sign In Western astrology, astrological signs are the twelve 30-degree sectors that make up ecliptic, Earth's 360-degree orbit around the Sun. The signs enumerate from the first day of spring, known as the First Point of Aries, which is the Equinox (c ...

and musicians or performers who were born under it. Williams began writing music for ''Zodiac Suite'' in 1942 and finished the composition in 1945. Williams first recorded the suite as part of a trio for Asch records and followed this with two notable performances with larger groups. The first performance was with a

chamber jazz Chamber jazz is a genre of jazz involving small, acoustic-based ensembles where group interplay is important. It is influenced aesthetically by the small ensembles of chamber music in musical neoclassicism and is often influenced by classical fo ...

group and the second was with a

symphony orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

in New York City. These performances took such a toll on Williams that she took a break from performing shortly afterwards. While the Asch recording was well received by

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

s, the contemporary reception to the two concerts was mixed. ''Zodiac Suite'' is notable as an early instance of the fusion of classical and jazz music. Williams's recording and initial performances of the suite have been recognised as breakthroughs in the history of jazz.

Music

''Zodiac Suite'' is a series of 12 distinct but conceptually linked short pieces of music each representing a sign of the zodiac composed by American musician

. The suite was originally written for small group performance: six songs for a trio, five songs for a solo

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

and one song for a duet of piano and

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

. The music has features of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

alongside the musical language of

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and

. A demonstration of this is given in "Aries", where the music moves from the sounds of

boogie-woogie Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, but already developed in African-American communities since the 1870s.Paul, Elliot, ''That Crazy American Music'' (1957), Chapter 10, p. 229. It was eventually ex ...

to dissonance within the first minute and a half of the piece.

Suspended chord A suspended chord (or sus chord) is a musical chord (music), chord in which the (major third, major or minor third, minor) third is omitted and replaced with a perfect fourth or a major second. The lack of a minor or a major third in the chord cre ...

s, whole-tone scales and contrasting use of

major and minor In Western music, the adjectives major and minor may describe an interval, chord, scale, or key. A composition, movement, section, or phrase may also be referred to by its key, including whether that key is major or minor. The words derive ...

are used throughout the suite. Scholar Richard Thompson noted the wide variance of styles in the suite, which included "20th century European piano preludes, blues boogie-woogie, vamps, ABA sectional forms, which often contrast jazz and classical writing, free piano

cadenza In music, a cadenza, (from , meaning cadence; plural, ''cadenze'' ) is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist(s), usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing virtuosic display ...

s, standard song progressions and forms." Jazz scholar Mark Tucker proposed that the suite is "part of a larger stream of American composition" which encompasses the work of

Paul Whiteman Paul Samuel Whiteman (March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967) was an American Jazz bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violinist. As the leader of one of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s and early 193 ...

Ferde Grofé Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé (March 27, 1892 April 3, 1972), known as Ferde Grofé () was an American composer, arranger, pianist, and instrumentalist. He is best known for his 1931 five-movement symphonic poem, ''Grand Canyon Suite'', and for ...

Peter DeRose Peter DeRose (or De Rose) (March 10, 1896 – April 23, 1953) was an American composer of jazz and pop music during the era of Tin Pan Alley. In 1970, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Biography A native of New York City, a s ...

Alec Wilder Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 16, 1907 – December 24, 1980) was an American composer and author. Biography Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States, to a prominent family; the Wilder Building downtown (at the "Four ...

Bix Beiderbecke Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke ( ; March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer. Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s, a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical a ...

and

Willard Robison Willard Robison (September 18, 1894 – June 24, 1968) was an American vocalist, pianist, and composer of popular songs, born in Shelbina, Missouri. His songs reflect a rural, melancholy theme steeped in Americana and their warm style has ...

. American academic Farah Griffin compared the suite to trumpeter Miles Davis's 1959 album ''

Kind of Blue ''Kind of Blue'' is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released on August17,1959, by Columbia Records. For this album, Davis led a sextet featuring saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Ev ...

,'' and wrote that ''Zodiac Suite'' "leaps ahead a decade, previewing the sounds that would dominate the late fifties" Williams later created an

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

l score for the suite based on the influence of American composer Duke Ellington's longer works and European composers like

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

and

Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...

. The orchestrated rendering of the suite integrated the individual pieces into a more unified work.

Composition and first performances

Composition and Asch recording

Williams began writing ''Zodiac Suite'' in 1942 after borrowing a book on

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...

. 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". Ellington's extended jazz piece ''

Black, Brown and Beige ''Black, Brown and Beige'' is an extended jazz work written by Duke Ellington for his first concert at Carnegie Hall, on January 23, 1943. It tells the history of African Americans and was the composer's attempt to transform attitudes about race, ...

'' 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". 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. The performance received a positive reception and Williams subsequently recorded ''Zodiac Suite'' with the same trio for Asch records. Most pieces in the suite were dedicated to or influenced by other performers and their star sign. "Aries" was for

Ben Webster Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27, 1909 – September 20, 1973) was an American jazz tenor Saxophone, saxophonist. He performed in the United States and Europe and made many recordings with Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Johnny Hodges, a ...

and

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop ...

; "Taurus" for Duke Ellington; "Gemini" for

Shorty Baker Harold "Shorty" Baker (May 26, 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, US – November 8, 1966) was an American jazz trumpeter. Baker began on drums, but switched to trumpet during his teens. He started his career on riverboats and played with Don Redman ...

; "Cancer" for

Lem Davis Lemuel A. Davis (22 June 1914 – 16 January 1970), was an American jazz alto saxophonist associated with swing music. Born in Tampa, Florida, United States, his career began in the 1940s with pianist Nat Jaffe. Davis played with the Coleman ...

; "Leo" for

Vic Dickenson Victor Dickenson (August 6, 1906 – November 16, 1984) was an American jazz trombonist. His career began in the 1920s and continued through musical partnerships with Count Basie (1940–41), Sidney Bechet (1941), and Earl Hines. Life and car ...

; "Libra" for

Art Tatum Arthur Tatum Jr. (, October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever. From early in his career, fellow musicians acclaimed Tatum's technical ability as extraordinary. Tatum a ...

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...

Bud Powell Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was an American jazz pianist and composer. A pioneer in the development of bebop and its associated contributions to jazz theory,Grove Powell's application of complex phrasing to ...

Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the Jazz standard, standard jazz repertoire, includ ...

Charlie Parker Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz Saxophone, saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of beb ...

and

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...

; "Scorpio" for

Ethel Waters Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her no ...

Katherine Dunham Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006) was an African American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century and directed her own dance compan ...

and Al Lucas; "Sagittarius" for

Eddie Heywood Edward Heywood Jr. (December 4, 1915 – January 3, 1989) was an American jazz pianist and composer particularly active in the 1940s and 1950s. Biography Heywood was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. His father, Eddie Heywood Sr., was a ...

; "Capricorn" for

Pearl Primus Pearl Eileen Primus (November 29, 1919 – October 29, 1994) was an American dancer, choreographer and anthropologist. Primus played an important role in the presentation of African dance to American audiences. Early in her career she saw the need ...

and

Frankie Newton Frankie Newton ( William Frank Newton; January 4, 1906 – March 11, 1954) was an American jazz trumpeter from Emory, Virginia, United States. He played in several New York City bands in the 1920s and 1930s, including those led by Lloyd Scott, ...

; "Aquarius" for

Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sou ...

and

Eartha Kitt Eartha Mae Kitt (née Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress. She was known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Baby" ...

; and "Pisces" for Al Hall and

Barney Josephson Barney Josephson (February 1, 1902 – September 29, 1988) was the American founder of Café Society in Greenwich Village, New York's first integrated nightclub. Opening artists in 1938 included Billie Holiday, who first performed the song "Stran ...

. While Williams appeared pleased with the recording for Asch, she had ideas for new ways to perform the suite. 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 In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestrat ...

for television network

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

. With Orent, Williams listened to and discussed the work of

modernist composers Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

and Stravinsky. She credited Orent with influencing her musical growth. Orent worked with Williams on the arrangements but the extent of his input is unclear. The revised score gave more opportunities for improvisation.

Town Hall and Carnegie Hall performances

At the end of 1945, Williams performed ''Zodiac Suite'' at

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

with Edmond Hall's chamber-jazz group. 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 Café society was the description of the "Beautiful People" and " Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafés and restaurants in New York, Paris and London beginning in the late 19th century. Maury Henry Biddle Paul is credited wi ...

to work on it full-time. 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. 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 Baron Timme Rosenkrantz (July 6, 1911 – August 11, 1969) was a Danish aristocrat, author and jazz enthusiast. Rosenkrantz was an early supporter of African American jazz musicians and promoted many concerts and recordings. He also produced a 1 ...

for use on pirate records in Europe. Journalist

Chris Albertson Christiern Gunnar Albertson (October 18, 1931 – April 24, 2019) was a New York City-based jazz journalist, writer and record producer. Early life Albertson was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, on October 18, 1931, but his father left the family b ...

noted that Rosenkrantz released music from ''Zodiac Suite'' on the Selmer record label using different song titles. Williams was never paid for this release. The concert was eventually released in full in the 1990s. In June 1946, Williams performed ''Zodiac Suite'' with a 70-member

at New York's

after being approached by the concert promoter

Norman Granz Norman Granz (August 6, 1918 – November 22, 2001) was an American jazz record producer and concert promoter. He founded the record labels Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve, and Pablo and the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series. Gra ...

. Because of the expense of a concert on this scale, Williams again had to pay for some of the organisational expenses. The German jazz critic

Dan Morgenstern Dan Michael Morgenstern (October 24, 1929 – September 7, 2024) was an American jazz historian and archivist. Born to a Jewish family in Germany, Morgenstern fled Nazi-occupied Austria with his mother and in 1947 emigrated to the United States ...

considers the Carnegie Hall concert to be the first time a symphony orchestra performed jazz compositions. 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". 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. Working on the ''Zodiac Suite'' took a physical and emotional toll on Williams, and she subsequently took a break from performing.

Subsequent performances

Performances by Williams

Williams performed parts of ''Zodiac Suite'' with a trio in 1947 for an

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

benefit concert at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

. 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. In 1957, she performed with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie at the

Newport Jazz Festival The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hire ...

a medley of three songs from the suite ("Virgo", "Libre" and "Aries") that was included on an album of the concert. This was one of Williams's first public performances in many years. With the jazz arranger

Melba Liston Melba Doretta Liston (January 13, 1926 – April 23, 1999) was an American jazz trombonist, arranger, and composer. Other than those playing in all-female bands, she was the first woman trombonist to play in big bands during the 1940s and 1960s, ...

, Williams planned an arrangement of the suite for the pianist Thelonious Monk but the project never materialised. In 1969, Williams performed music from the suite on

Vatican Radio Vatican Radio (; ) is the official broadcasting service of Vatican City. Established in 1931 by Guglielmo Marconi, today its programs are offered in 47 languages, and are sent out on short wave, DRM, medium wave, FM, satellite and the Internet. ...

Performances by others

Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham and

Talley Beatty Talley Beatty (22 December 1918 – 29 April 1995) was born in Cedar Grove, Louisiana, a section of Shreveport, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He is considered one of the greatest of African American choreographers, and also bears the titles da ...

all

choreographed Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer creates choreographies thr ...

dances to sections of the suite in the 1940s. The American musician

Geri Allen Geri Antoinette Allen (June 12, 1957 – June 27, 2017) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. She taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Pittsburgh. Early life and education Allen was born in Pontiac, Michigan ...

, who played Williams in the film ''Kansas City'', recorded ''Zodiac Suite Revisited'' with the Mary Lou Williams Collective in 2006. In 2021, ''Zodiac Suite'' was performed by the

New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the ''Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc.'', and globally known as the ''New York Philharmonic Orchestra'' (NYPO) or the ''New Yo ...

, conducted by Tito Muñoz, and by the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra''.'' The same year, the pianist Chris Pattishall released an interpretation of the suite called ''Zodiac''.

Critical reception

''Zodiac Suite'' was considered novel in jazz music when it was first performed, both thematically and musically, due to its references to and use of classical music. The work's

symphonic A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning ...

nature makes it a precursor to the

third stream Third stream is a music genre that is a fusion of jazz and classical music. The term was coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller in a lecture at Brandeis University. There are many ways to define third-stream music. It could refer to a group ...

genre which combines jazz and classical music. Writer Richard Lawn described the combination of jazz and classical as "unique and groundbreaking". The black community viewed the suite as an accomplishment when it was first performed, and one journalist said the Carnegie Hall concert "completely eroded the whites-only barrier to the Carnegie Hall stage." Both Lawn and the ''Encyclopedia of African American Music'' view the suite as a breakthrough for women composers.

Ben Ratliff Ben Ratliff (born 1968 in New York City) is an American journalist, music critic and author. Biography Ratliff is the son of an English mother and an American father, growing up in London and in Rockland County, New York. From 1996 to 2016, ...

called ''Zodiac Suite'' "beautifully coherent" and noted the strong feminine expression in the "unmacho" music. Jazz reviewers had an overall positive response to Williams's Asch recording. The album was chosen by ''The Record Review'' as their record of the month and was one of ''Metronome'''s albums of the year. In his review of the reissue of the album, Tucker wrote that the recording highlights Williams's ability "not just as composer but as improviser". In 2020, the album was inducted into the

Grammy Hall of Fame The Grammy Hall of Fame is a hall of fame to honor musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Inductees are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of ...

. At the time, the Town Hall arrangement received encouraging reviews from jazz critics, but classical music critics were mostly less sympathetic.

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

described the performance as "neither fish nor foul" in its attempt to marry American jazz and

French impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject ...

. A review in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' called the suite "rather ambitious" and "scarcely a jazz piece at all".

Barry Ulanov Baruch "Barry" Ulanov (April 10, 1918 – April 30, 2000) was an American writer, perhaps best known as a jazz critic. Background Barry Ulanov was born in Manhattan, New York City. He received early instruction on the violin from his father Nathan ...

deemed the concert a "brave try, a partial success" as well as the "music of the future". The Town Hall performance is placed by ''The Penguin Jazz Guide'' as a "key moment in the recognition of jazz as an important twentieth-century music". Williams said that ''Zodiac Suite'' earned her "the name of musician's musician instead of the Boogie Woogie Queen".

Structure

''Zodiac Suite'' is composed of Time lengths given above reference the original 1945 Asch recording.

Recordings

Dave Douglas David or Dave Douglas may refer to: Entertainment * David Douglas (director) (born 1953), Canadian cinematographer, director and writer * Dave Douglas (trumpeter) (born 1963), American jazz trumpeter * Dave Douglas (drummer) (born 1979), American ...

* "Aries" on '' Soul on Soul'' (RCA, 2000) Virginia Mayhew Quartet * "Cancer" on ''Mary Lou Williams – The Next 100 Years'' (Renma, 2011) Chris Pattishall: * ''Zodiac'' (self-published, 2021) Mary Lou Williams: * ''Zodiac Suite'' (Asch Records, 1945) - original issue; (Smithsonian/Folkways, 1995) - re-issue * ''The Complete Town Hall Concert of December 31, 1945'' (Jazz Classics Records, 1996) * ''"''Virgo", "Libra" and "Aries" on ''

Dizzy Gillespie at Newport Dizziness is an imprecise term that can refer to a sense of disorientation in space, vertigo, or lightheadedness. It can also refer to disequilibrium or a non-specific feeling, such as giddiness or foolishness. Dizziness is a common medical c ...

'' (Verve, 1957) The Mary Lou Williams Collective (a group consisting of Geri Allen,

Andrew Cyrille Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographer ...

Billy Hart Billy Hart (born November 29, 1940) is an American jazz drumming, jazz drummer and educator. He is known internationally for his work with Herbie Hancock's "Mwandishi" band in the early 1970s, as well as with Shirley Horn, Stan Getz, and Quest (b ...

Buster Williams Charles Anthony "Buster" Williams (born April 17, 1942) is an American jazz bassist. Williams is known for his membership in pianist Herbie Hancock's early 1970s group, as well as working with guitarist Larry Coryell, the Thelonious Monk reperto ...

): * ''Zodiac Suite: Revisited'' (Mary Records, 2006) Jeong Lim Yang * ''Zodiac Suite: Reassured'' (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2022) Aaron Diehl and

the Knights ''The Knights'' ( ''Hippeîs''; Attic: ) was the fourth play written by Aristophanes, who is considered the master of Old Comedy. The play is a satire on the social and political life of classical Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and in thi ...

* ''Zodiac Suite'' (Mack Avenue, 2023)

References

Sources

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