I was driving around uptown the other day, and my shuffle landed on Mary Lou Williams’ masterpiece, “Black Christ Of The Andes”. Something about the sunshine after a fresh rain, parishioners on their way to church, kids playing, yuppies scurrying towards the train, mothers on their way to the supermarket, and the beautiful old buildings that (thankfully) still dominate the Harlem landscape. For those who have been following this blog I have been trying to document with pictures the diminishing returns of our once-great society… same as how we do with the music I guess, as these buildings get demolished and replaced with shoddily-constructed condos, CapitalOne bank branches, and Starbucks…
I listened to “The Devil” while cruising up and down St. Nicholas and it all felt right. I adore this record and it is a spiritual experience, and if it’s not out-and-out gospel it is nonetheless one of the most intense expressions of faith in music I can think of.
Some people told me at one point Mary Lou williams was possessed; but it’s deeper than all that. From Time Magazine, circa 1964:
“There came a time ten years ago when Mary Lou Williams decided that jazz was the devil’s own music. She was among the best of the bebop pianists, but out on the scene she sensed evil all around her. She could even hear it echo in her playing. One blue night in Paris, “the badness” overwhelmed her; she got up from the piano and quit jazz cold. She drew up a list of names to pray for (urgent cases marked in red), and before long she had an endless coil of sadness, an encyclopedia of bad trouble, a roll of death and dishonor. For years there was nothing for her to do but pray.
“Then she joined the Roman Catholic Church. A priest convinced her that God would be pleased to hear her play once more: music was his greatest gift to her, and music played by a prayerful person, the priest explained, is a kind of prayer….
” ‘I am praying through my fingers when I play,’ she says. ‘I get that good ’soul sound,’ and I try to touch people’s spirits.’
“Down & Out. Her discoveries of both God and the devil in jazz reflect perhaps the troubled state of her own spirit. But even so, she seems to have found her way. With the help of a priest, she has written a jazz hymn to St. Martin de Porres, a mulatto saint of the 17th century, and she is now working on a jazz Mass.”
True indeed, to wit:
“The devil is a woman with a red dress on,
A gleam that flits across a roaming eye -
The devil is a hand that moves along a satin seam,
A softly whispered, sweetly whispered lie.
The devil is a window filled with fancy clothes,
The lips that part and smile and breathe a sigh -
An open door someplace where steps that shouldn’t go there goes,
A word that touched the heart and made it cry.
Where are you gonna run, where do you think you’re gonna hide?
What makes you think you’re slick enough to take old Satan for a ride?
Angel never took a notice that no matter what you do,
Our old friend Mephistopheles gets there just ahead of you…
The devil never rests come day come dusk come dawn,
You compromise and wind up soul-in-palm;
So don’t it strike you funny when you look him in the eye,
The devil looks a lot like you and I.”
Mary Lou Williams - Black Christ Of The Andes
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