Musical mass
Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and recorded more than one hundred records. In the mid-to-late 1950s, Mary Lou Williams retired from public performance for nearly four years. During her hiatus she converted to Catholicism. Her first studio recording she made after her return was a musical mass entiteld Mary Lou Williams Presents Black Christ of the Andes. The album is a hymn in honor of the Peruvian saint St. Martin de Porres (1579 - 1639). De Porres was a Peruvian brother of the Dominican Order and the son of a freed slave named Ana Velazquez and a Spanish patriarch who refused to recognize him because he was born with his mother's dark features. St. Martin de Porres was dedicated to the poor and today he is the patron saint of those who seek racial harmony.
Williams performed the full mass for the first time at Saint Francis Xavier Church in New York in November of 1962, and she recorded it in October 1963.
Praise The Lord
The sound of the album draws upon blues, gospel and jazz, and is rooted in both Catholicism and the black American music tradition that range from bebop and blues to boogie woogie, gospel and R&B. Praise The Lord is a triumphal jam session with some great gospel rap by vocalist Jimmy Mitchell, Budd Johnson wailing on tenor sax and Mary Lou Williams on piano.
Come Holy Spirit, in nature one
With both the Father and the Son
Shed forth Thy grace within our breast
And dwell with us, a ready guest.
Source: ABC, The Dream Variation, NPR, Wikipedia
Source image: The Library of Congress via Wikipedia
