Dates
- 1929-2015
- Majority of material found within 1979-2015
Scope and Contents
The Mary Lou Williams Foundation Collection comprises materials created and retained by the Foundation and its Executive Director, Peter O’Brien from its inception in 1980 to O'Brien's death in 2015. It contains written music, contracts, correspondence, clippings, ephemera, photographs, audiovisual recordings, and other items documenting the Foundation’s activities during that span.
The Foundation was incorporated over a year prior to Williams’s 1981 death. The Foundation Collectiion contains records related to its creation as well as to the execution of the Williams Estate, which was primarily carried out by O’Brien, and for which the Foundation was the primary beneficiary. These are contained in Series 4: Founding and legal documents. This series also includes documentation of the reconstitution of Mary Records and Cecilia Music Publishing in 2006.
The Foundation Collection contains records related to performances, recordings, and special presentations of Williams work in Series 2: Subject files, which also includes correspondence, topical files, and “MLW Mentions”: clippings, printouts of websites, and other published documentation of Williams or her work. Many of those projects were supported by the Foundation’s creation of transcriptions of Williams arrangements for which there were no corresponding extant charts. These and other parts, scores, and editions of Williams’s written music prepared or collected by the Foundation can be found in Series 1: Written music.
The documentation of the Foundation’s activities are further supported by financial files covering most of the Foundation’s existence, containing a robust record of the Foundation's income, disbursements, taxes, and other documents, including some transitional documents with the Foundation's accounting firm after several years of unpaid taxes.
Audiovisual materials created or collected by the Foundation include live performances, radio programs, interviews, and recordings prepared for Foundation projects. Of particular note are a series of interview recordings between O'Brien and various persons in Williams's life, include Mario Hancock, as well as live and studio recordings of future Executive Director of the Foundation, and jazz legend in her own right, Geri Allen.
There is also photography of Foundation events and artifacts collected by the Foundation from throughout its existence.
For additional and more specific information, please refer to series-level scope and content notes.
Extent
42.15 Cubic Feet
197 audiocassettes (analog) (196 "compact" cassettes and one microcassette.)
189 audio discs (CD) (184 standard CDs, three CD-ROMs, one CD with data, one 2-sided CD/DVD combination.)
36 videodiscs (DVD) (35 standard DVDs. One 2-sided CD/DVD combination.)
12 videocassettes (VHS)
7 audiocassettes (digital)
6 audiotape reels (five 1" reels and one 1/4" reel.)
2 videocassettes (DVCAM)
1 video reels (1 inch)
1 videodiscs (Blu-Ray)
1 videocassettes (U-matic)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for use unless otherwise indicated.
Language of Materials
English
Biographical / Historical
The Mary Lou Williams Foundation Inc. was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization on February 25, 1980, in New York State, and placed under the direction of Williams, her longtime manager Peter O’Brien, and friend Joyce Breach. Williams died May 28, 1981. It was initially incorporated with the goal of “advanc[ing the] public knowledge of the art of jazz... to children between the ages of 6 and 12.” In August of 1981, under the guidance of its Board of Directors—Peter O’Brien, Joyce Breach, Marian Turner, Gary Giddins, and Dan Morgenstern—the Foundation expanded its mandate to include furthering William’s musical legacy. Breach resigned in 1981, leaving O’Brien as the sole permanent employee. O’Brien moved to Minneapolis, MN in 1987, and Syracuse, NY in 1991, before returning to the New York City area in 1994. After O’Brien’s death in 2015, the Foundation was helmed by Geri Allen until her death in 2017. In recent years, its efforts have been guided by scholar and composer, Herb Jordan.
As part of its main activities, the Mary Lou Williams Foundation has created educational programs, developed live programming and organized recording sessions, prepared written music of Williams’s compositions and arrangements, and generally served to expand Williams’s legacy and support the jazz community.
Arrangement
This arrangement contains 7 series and 6 subseries
Series 1: Written music
Subseries 1.1: Individual titles
Subseries 1.2: Music by other musicians
Subseries 1.3: Published music
Subseries 1.4: Special projects
Subseries 1.5: Zodiac Suite
Subseries 1.6: Liturgical works
Series 2: Subject files
Series 3: Financial files
Series 4: Founding and legal documents
Series 5: Audiovisual recordings
Series 6: Photographs
Series 7: Artifacts
Series 1 and 6 were partially processed by IJS archivists concurrently with the processing of the Mary Lou Williams Collection in 2000. This arrangement retains the arrangement of series 6, but changes the apparent arrangement of series 1 to align it more closely with series 1 in the Mary Lou Williams Collection. The initial arrangement organized materials by instrumentation (i.e. big band, small group). Such information is included in the present finding aid, but is not used to organize the materials in the series in this arrangement.
The Mary Lou Williams Foundation’s records were created by, collected by, or prepared for the Foundation’s Executive Director, Peter O’Brien, between 1981 and 2014. His record keeping practices were such that his personal materials, Foundation materials, and Williams’s materials were often intermingled. In most cases, it is clear which records were produced when O’Brien was acting as the Foundation. This arrangement follows original order as found when record keeping practices were clearest.
For additional and more specific information, please refer to series-level arrangement notes.
Other Finding Aids
There are 3 Supplemental finding aids associated with the Mary Lou Williams Foundation Collection:
An informal inventory of audiovisual recordings that notes formats, dates, and significant markings.
A spreadsheet that further describes Williams's liturgical works.
And a spreadsheet that additionally describes the materials from the Zodiac Suite found in series 1 and 11 and in the Mary Lou Williams Collection and in series 1 in the Mary Lou Williams Foundation Collection.
They are available upon request. See the relevant series for additional details.
General
This collection includes items that may reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and/or xenophobic perspectives; may be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality; and/or include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, and natural disasters. These views do not represent the views, opinions, mission, values, and representations of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, the Institute of Jazz Studies, and Rutgers University Libraries. They are solely present as an accurate representation of the historical record contained within this collection.
Processing Information
Processing decisions are discussed in the arrangement notes for most series at the series level.
- Author
- Finding aid authors include Benjamin Houtman and Annie Kuebler. The collection was arranged and described with assistance from Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Diane Biunno, Ted Buehrer, Kathy Cannarozzi, Adriana Cuervo, Max Dienemann, Michenael Fils-Aime, April Grier, Tad Hershorn, Zahra Johnson, Herb Jordan, Tammy Kernodle, Angela Lawrence, Mark Lopeman, Jared Negley, Rashida Phillips, Charles Pickerall, Amanda Clay Powers, Vincent Pelote, Annaliza Rodriguez-Galan, Cecilia Smith, Elizabeth Surles, Seth Winner, and Wayne Winborne.
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Part of the Institute of Jazz Studies Repository
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