Mary Lou Williams' vast musical output spanned from bebop and swing to sacred music, and tapped into her deeply spiritual roots. A child prodigy, she began performing publicly at the tender age of seven and launched her professional career not long after. It wasn’t until she moved to Kansas City and played for a spell with Andy Kirk’s Twelve Clouds of Joy that she honed her truly remarkable talent for composition and arranging, eventually churning out charts for eminent bandleaders of the era such as Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, and Benny Goodman. A relocation to New York in the 1940s allowed her to thrive in the clubs of Greenwich Village and Harlem, where she often led jam sessions and mentored the up-and-coming players like Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie. In her later years, Williams performed regularly and reaffirmed her ability to adapt to the changing nuances of jazz, releasing exceptional tracks like “Play It Momma” (Zoning, 1974), “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” (Free Spirits, 1978), and “The Jeep Is Jumping” (Live at The Cookery, 1990). In a profession that reserved little attention for female artists, Mary Lou Williams effortlessly earned her membership in the upper echelon of jazz greats from the beginning. By the time of her death in 1981, she had made tremendous contributions to the genre’s written and recorded history – and perhaps more importantly, she had laid the groundwork for more women to make their mark in jazz.