Artistic direction, alto saxophone:
Pierre-Antoine Badaroux
Alto saxophone, clarinet: Antonin-Tri Hoang
Tenor saxophones, clarinets: Pierre Borel and Geoffroy Gesser
Baryton saxophone: Benjamin Dousteyssier
Trumpets: Pauline Leblond, Gabriel Levasseur and Brice Pichard
Trombones: Michaël Ballue and Alexis Persigan
Piano: Matthieu Naulleau
Guitar, banjo: Romain Vuillemin
Double bass: Sabastien Beliah
Drums: Antonin Gerbal
Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981) is a pianist, composer and arranger. Pianist on stage and arranger in the shadows for Andy Kirk’s orchestra from the 1930s on, she aroused the curiosity of the public, because there were very few female instrumentalists in jazz. In the 1940s, she became the mentor of Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie. During this period, she wrote for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and collaborated with Cecil Taylor and Buster Williams in the 1970s. When she died in 1981, she left unfinished an ambitious suite relating the history of jazz.
Mary’s Ideas - Umlaut Big Band plays Mary Lou Williams is a musical biography. It is part of Umlaut Big Band’s portrait series of composers and arrangers and belongs to a more global reflection on the forgotten musi-
cians of history. This unique program is made up of original manuscripts, rare sound archives and unpublished scores gathered during a research trip in 2019 at the Institute of Jazz Studies (Newark, U.S.A) in partnership with the Mary Lou Williams Foundation.