Written music, circa 1930-1981

The Written Music series contains original manuscripts created by or for Williams from throughout Williams’s career, and includes drafts and sketches, parts and scores, lead sheets, and copyright sheets, which were prepared for recording sessions, live performances, classroom activities, and unique projects, both as works for hire and performances under her own leadership, or for personal use, including composition. Most of these materials are collected in subseries 1.1: Music manuscripts. Still more can be found in subseries 1.2: Notebooks, which include music written for Andy Kirk and Duke Ellington, materials prepared for her 1964 self-titled album (also known as Black Christ of the Andes), and Williams’s liturgical works. Williams was a trusted mentor, peer, and collaborator. The subseries 1.3: Music by other musicians contains materials from Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Tadd Dameron, Melba Liston, and other notable musicians who shared their music with Williams. Subseries 1.5 includes ephemera related to Willams’s written music, including set lists, liturgies, and lyrics, some related to Langston Hughes, and there are published piano and sheet music and stock arrangements of compositions by Mary Lou Williams and others, located in subseries 1.4.


There are multiple materials related to Williams’s longform compositions, The Zodiac Suite and her various Masses. The Zodiac Suite materials, collected in subseries 1.6, include parts, sketches, and copyright lead sheets related to each of the constituent pieces, with the sole exception of “Capricorn.” There is a full run of complete manuscript scores for chamber orchestra prepared for the 1945 Town Hall performance comprising flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone, 2 violins, 2 violas, cello, piano, bass, and drums. There are mostly complete parts with conductor’s lead sheets that correspond to those scores. There are scores for symphony orchestra prepared for the 1946 Carnegie Hall performance for “Scorpio,” “Sagittarius,” and “Aquarius,” as well as for “Boogie.” Aside from the parts and sketches, the mostly complete chamber orchestra music, and the symphony orchestra music, there are a series of versions of “Scorpio”: a 3-piano version (for “Mary” [Lou Williams], [Thelonious] “Monk,” and “Bud” [Powell]); a small group score; a score for the Andy Kirk Orchestra, and photocopies of a score prepared for the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Note: “Aries Mood” found in the parts and sketches folders would become “Virgo” and is unrelated to the big band piece “Aries Mood: Portrait of Ben Webster.” That work and the similarly titled “Cancer Mood” (better known as “Carcinoma”) are not part of the Zodiac Suite and are part of subseries 1.1. The “Cancer Mood” found in the “Cancer parts and sketches” folder is part of the Zodiac Suite.


In describing her Liturgical works, Williams is commonly considered to have prepared 3 Masses: Mass I (the “Pittsburgh” Mass), Mass II (the “Lenten” Mass), and Mass III (“Mary Lou’s Mass”). While this somewhat oversimplifies things, it is generally correct: the Pittsburgh Mass was performed once, 1967 July 24 (with rehearsals), and the Lenten Mass was performed on two occasions, 1968 March 3 – April 14 in New York City and 1969 March 12 in Rome. The third Mass was performed multiple times under multiple circumstances. The “Liturgical works” subseries (1.7) reflects this. The most substantive groups include materials related to the “Pittsburgh” Mass, the “Lenten” Masses, parts identified as being prepared for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Mary Lou’s Mass, sketches and parts of individual mass elements, and piano and vocal scores equivalent to tiles found on the recorded albums. Additionally, there are parts related to Williams’s 1967 Carnegie Hall performance, drafts “Mass[es] for Peace,” or ”Votive” Masses, several versions of Mary Lou’s Mass prepared for unidentified occasions with differing orderings, and religious works by others, including Robert Ledogar—who would collaborate with Williams—Kevin Kelly, and Edward V. Bonnemère, and Duke Ellington.