Mary Lou Williams (May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and LP versions). Williams wrote and arranged for such bandleaders as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie … [Read more...] about Friday Open Thread: Black Female Jazz Musicians
Arts and Culture
Thursday Open Thread: Black Female Jazz Musicians
Rosa King (March 14, 1939 – December 12, 2000) was an American jazz and blues saxophonist/singer who made her fame in Amsterdam and recorded many albums under a variety of labels. … [Read more...] about Thursday Open Thread: Black Female Jazz Musicians
Wednesday Open Thread: Black Female Jazz Musicians
Clora Bryant (born May 30, 1927, in Denison, Texas) is an American jazz trumpeter. She started in music as a singer in her Baptist church, but took up the trumpet after her brother, Frederick Bryant (born March 21, 1918 who currently resides in Lawton, Oklahoma), left it on going into the Army in 1941. She studied improvisation using a wire recorder to record her own soloing … [Read more...] about Wednesday Open Thread: Black Female Jazz Musicians
Monday Open Thread: Black Female Jazz Musicians
This week's open thread will highlight some very talented black female jazz musicians. Hadda Brooks (October 29, 1916 – November 21, 2002), was an American pianist, vocalist and composer. Her first single, "Swingin' the Boogie", which she composed, was issued in 1945. She was billed as "Queen of the Boogie." She sang at Hawaii's official statehood ceremony in 1959 and … [Read more...] about Monday Open Thread: Black Female Jazz Musicians
Sunday Jazz Brunch Open Thread: RIP Ornette Coleman
Today' open thread is dedicated to a jazz great that we lost earlier this week, Ornette Coleman. Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960's, a term he invented with the name of an album. Coleman's timbre was … [Read more...] about Sunday Jazz Brunch Open Thread: RIP Ornette Coleman