On May eight, 2k, the great jazz pianist, composer, arranger, teacher and humanitarian Mary Lou Williams would have turned ninety. She'd have been happy and felt cleared to see the prevailing renaissance of the recording and performing of her music. Williams ' boosted visibility goes side by side with a replenished appreciation of the unusual life that produced such a notable body of work that defies straightforward definition. She has few peers. Her unusual odyssey in jazz parallels the trail the music took from Louis Armstrong's nadir to fashionable and beyond, particularly where her holy music is concerned. Mary Lou Williams kept particular musicianship and creative drive through her 7 decades in jazz. It's this accomplishment to which Soul on Soul is devoted. That Williams's bequest will grow in depth and luster was warranted with the conclusion of a contract in 1999 between the Institute of Jazz Studies and the Mary Lou Williams Foundation. The foundation, made by Williams to further jazz education and the marketing of her music, donated almost two hundred boxes of private papers and papers, music manuscripts, rare and original sound recordings, pictures, scrapbooks and other souvenirs to the Institute. A grant from the nation's Endowment for the Humanities made it simple for work on archival processing to start in the autumn of 2k under the direction of Project Archivist Annie Kuebler, a twelve-year vet of the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian Establishment . The Recording Academy has awarded the Institute further funds to save recordings found in the Williams Collection. The depth and breadth of this collection is dazzling - everything from scores to major compositions to cocktail tissues on which night club patrons jotted down requests for Mary, related Dan Morgenstern, IJS Director.

This online exhibit, a collusion between the Institute of Jazz Studies and the Dana Library Media and Digital Services, draws on treasures from the Mary Lou Williams Collection to inform her story. the exhibit starts off to attain much more : to provide updates on the processing and usage of the collection, guide analysts to recordings by Williams herself and others who've played her music, and detail sources on her career. The exhibit uses the most recent technical advances in capturing photographs and sound to give broader expression to an intrinsically musical story. These internet pages, drawing on materials from the collection, try to correct the record on one of the most generally held misapprehensions about Williams.She was indeed one of the best female musicians in jazz, but is also one of jazz's best figures, period.