Name: Zodiac Suite
Price: 37 USD
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Merging her jazz sensibility with writing for a classical ensemble, she sought to expand her compositional language […] so there is nobody better to take on a project such as this, and lovingly... — Jazzwise, October 2023 More…

Release Date: 15th Sep 2023
Catalogue No: MAC1201LP
Label: Mack Avenue

Grammy Awards

66th Awards (2024)

Nominee - Best Classical Compendium

Zodiac Suite

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"Mary Lou Williams was one of the great composers of the 20th Century, albeit highly underrated. It is my hope that this recording gives an insight into her musical ambitions at the time, while also yielding the question of what could have developed under better circumstances. The process of resurrecting this almost forgotten version of The Zodiac Suite has been a long yet rewarding journey. Mary Lou Williams scored this arrangement of the work in 1945. The original was written for her trio and recorded the year prior receiving wide critical acclaim. Unfortunately, the premiere with chamber orchestra was mired by an under rehearsed ensemble, and a number of music copying errors that contributed to a poorly executed performance. The story goes that Mary was so frustrated by this premiere that she left the Town Hall almost immediately after the concert was over, and never performed this arrangement again in her lifetime. A live recording from that evening reemerged after her death and was released in 1996 as The Complete Town Hall Concert of December 31, 1945. It fully reveals the challenges Mary Lou Williams had in realizing her orchestration of the suite. In some movements she purposefully omits the orchestra all together, simply covering the parts alone or with her trio." - Aaron Diehl

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October 2023

Merging her jazz sensibility with writing for a classical ensemble, she sought to expand her compositional language […] so there is nobody better to take on a project such as this, and lovingly to preserve this fusion of what he describes as ‘the language of black American folk music into this very Eurocentric identity’.

Zodiac Suite

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Zodiac Suite

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