{"id":3631,"date":"2014-03-11T21:36:44","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T21:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=3631"},"modified":"2014-03-11T21:36:44","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T21:36:44","slug":"3631","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2014\/03\/11\/3631\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Lou Williams' Harlem Salon Goes Digital"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mary Lou Williams\/ photo: William P. Gottlieb<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAnytime stride piano, swing, bebop and yet further developments in jazz styles intermingle, which is to say most times a living jazz pianist plays, the influence of Mary Lou Williams<\/strong> gets felt.
\nAnytime jazz\u2019s purpose\u2014its essential connection to African American history and culture and to social justice in general, its intellectual search, it spiritual legacy and potential, there is Williams too.
\nWhen we speak of Kansas City or Pittsburgh or Greenwich Village or, especially, Harlem, when we talk about how jazz legacies get passed on, how women were always right there, or how any jazz player today might best follow her or his heart, there also is Williams.
\nI\u2019ll say more about all that in tomorrow\u2019s Wall Street Journal<\/strong>, though a story tied to a fascinating two-week celebration of her legacy at Manhattan\u2019s Harlem Stage<\/strong>, and a three-night theatrical production with Geri Allen at the piano<\/a>.
\nAllen is perhaps the clearest inheritor today of Williams’s influence and her music, into which she has delved deeply and for decades.
\nWednesday morning, March 12, she convenes a rare, wide-ranging and fascinating national symposium that draws upon her touch at the piano, her network of fellow musicians and scholars and online technology.
\nLINK TO IT LIVE HERE<\/a><\/strong>, from 11am-2pm EST. (It will also be archived.)
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Geri Allen\/ photo courtesy, University of Pittsburgh<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be checking in just to hear duo-piano performances (from remote locations)\u2014Allen with Jason Moran, and with Vijay Iyer, I’m told. In between, the discussions should be every bit as captivating.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the website of the events host, the University Of Pittsburgh (one of six collaborating institutions, including Harlem Stage), says:<\/p>\n

The national symposium, which will be streamed live at www.music.pitt.edu<\/a>, was conceived by Geri Allen, associate professor of music and director of Pitt\u2019s Jazz Studies Program<\/a>. It will feature improvised piano duets by pianists in studios hundreds of miles apart, a portion of a work-in-progress film on Williams, and panel discussions with university scholars. Participants at five venues will partake in the online event simultaneously. This is one of the first times Pitt has used the Internet 2 Network for an arts-related event. \u2028\u2028Williams, who grew up in Pittsburgh\u2019s East Liberty neighborhood, wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements for Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and many others at a time when there were few female arrangers. Allen researched Williams as an ethnomusicology student here at Pitt in 1982.
\nThe cyber symposium will feature music and\/or commentary by:<\/p>\n