Zodiac Suite is a series of 12 pieces of jazz music written by the American jazz pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams and first performed in 1945. The suite makes use of elements of classical music alongside jazz, and Williams was influenced by modernism when writing and arranging it. Each song in the suite is inspired by an astrological sign and musicians or performers who were born under it. Williams began writing music for Zodiac Suite in 1942 and finished the composition in 1945.
Mary Lou Williams with Milt Orent who assisted with some of the arrangements for Zodiac Suite
Williams performing at Café Society, where she worked before the Town Hall concert
Mary Lou Williams and Dizzy Gillespie (bottom left), with whom she would later perform music from Zodiac Suite
Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records. Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie.
Williams c. 1946
Williams in her apartment with Jack Teagarden, Tadd Dameron, Hank Jones and Dizzy Gillespie
