If It Rotates We Can Control It

"Mary Lou Williams is perpetually contemporary" - Duke Ellington 

Something different this week... a few weeks ago I opened the show with a track by American jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams.  Born in 1910, Mary Lou Williams' first recordings were when she was a teenager with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.  She recorded all her life, and, in the 1960s her music tended to focus on sacred music, like gospels and masses.  "I am praying through my fingers when I play," she said. "I get that good 'soul sound,' and I try to touch people's spirits."  In my opinion, her greatest expression of this 'soul sound' is in a record that she did called Mary Lou's Mass, originally released in 1964, but re-released in 1974 on her own Mary record label. 

In an unusual step for the If It Rotates show, I'm going to present the album in it's entirety.  The album is broken up into two tracks, one for each side of the record, because the songs are quite short.  I think it's an amazing album, with influences from jazz to funk to gospel, and, while I'm not a religious man, the track 'Lazarus' always kills me.  I hope you like it.

Mary Lou Williams - Mary Lou's Mass - Side 1

Mary Lou Williams - Mary Lou's Mass - Side 2

  Side 1:
Praise the Lord: 2.07
Old Time Spiritual: 1:10
The Lord Says: 1:51
Act of Contrition: 1:26
Kyrie - Lord Have Mercy: 1:39
Gloria: 1:42
In His Day: 0:52
Lazarus - The Beggar Man: 4:24
Credo: 2:12
Medi: 3:58

Side 2:
Holy Holy Holy: 2:17
Our Father: 2:07
Lamb of God: 3:23
People in Trouble: 3:16
One: 1:23
Praise the Lord: 3:52