TT 307: Aaron Diehl and Mary Lou Williams

"Zodiac Suite" gets a proper hearing at last

There’s nothing else like the new album Zodiac Suite by Aaron Diehl & The Knights. Mary Lou Williams has long been established as one of the beloved jazz pianists, yet her major formal work for orchestra has never gotten a proper hearing. From the album bio:

Premiered in 1945, Zodiac Suite is best known in the trio incarnation that Williams recorded for the Asch label; within the same year she also performed the piece, each of its movements inspired by an astrological sign, in expanded versions for chamber-jazz ensemble at the Town Hall and for symphony orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Arriving just three years after Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown, and Beige” and a dozen years before Gunther Schuller coined the term “Third Stream,” the Carnegie Hall event should have been hailed as a touchstone in the fusion of jazz and classical music, but a lack of preparation and rehearsal time led to a compromised performance, leaving Williams frustrated, never to reprise the epic arrangement.

Is this the first record where a conventional European-styled orchestra truly swings? Perhaps it is. About time!

Aaron Diehl is uniquely suited to oversee such a project. He can play both classical and jazz at a high level, and can talk to an orchestra in terms that the orchestra can understand.

Usually the culture of orchestral performance precludes much personal investment from the players, but the Knights are bohemian and passionate. In the liner notes, artistic directors Eric & Colin Jacobsen write:

Alongside Aaron, we've done a deep dive into the various aural and written sources that exist, which include Mary Lou's own trio version; several handwritten parts and scores that had received various and mixed editing treatment; and a live recording from the premiere at Town Hall, an ill-fated outing that discouraged her from following up with more work in that form. The process has felt both like excavation and unveiling, and as we got to know the piece, the clarity of the writing, the intriguing blend of jazz and classical vocabularies and harmonies, and the vivid colors and moods of these twelve character pieces came to life.

Rounding out the ensemble are an ace rhythm section of David Wong and Aaron Kimmel plus a dynamic roster of soloists including Evan Christopher, Nicole Glover, Brandon Lee, and Mikaela Bennett.

1. Aries The music flutters and sighs, unable to decide. Diehl’s piano breaks are deep in the pocket.

2. Taurus A sustained flute tone (played by Alex Sopp) places a ghostly halo over gorgeous piano chords. A swinging blues tune foreshadows Bobby Timmons.

3. Gemini Is Mary Lou Williams in a bit of a Stravinsky mood here? The opening is somewhat like the Stravinsky Octet, and Evan Christopher blows soulful clarinet over a bitonal boogie-woogie.

4. Cancer This track is an album highlight; rich romantic string chords, a memorable melody, and old-school tenor saxophone romance from Nicole Glover.

5. Leo An ironic march with sophisticated intervals is pure ear candy. As with most of the movements in this suite, Williams doesn’t sit in one area for long. I could have listened to that ironic march for much longer.

6. Virgo Perhaps the hardest swinging track, with trumpeter Brandon Lee in the lead role, calling the children home in a puckish manner. David Wong gets a short intense bass solo, drummer Aaron Kimmel is heard to good effect as well. Finally we get a bit of exposed piano: Diehl is the real deal.

7. Libra Lee and Diehl stay to the forefront for another of the best melodies in Zodiac Suite.

8. Scorpio An ominous vamp with exotic colors is somewhat “Ellingtonian.” Indeed, throughout the suite, a certain amount of direct comparison to Duke Ellington is inevitable. Duke undoubtedly had a bit more practical experience dealing with the general idea of a “long suite” than Mary Lou; and perhaps in the cases of both composers, their finest work dealt directly with song, blues, swing, and superb jazz collaborators. However, I don’t believe any of Ellington’s experiments for classical forces are realized on record as well as Diehl and the Knights for Zodiac Suite. Certainly “Scorpio” doesn’t sound like amateur musical theatre in the manner of so many orchestral jazz releases. “Scorpio” swings for real.

9. Sagittarius James P. Johnson is another person in this conversation, and the double-time blues passages of “Sagittarius” might recall Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody.

10. Capricorn Williams lets her hands go in this complex orchestral texture. The cross-relations in the ensemble harmony are somewhere between Stravinsky and the blues. It would be absolutely impossible to guess what the heck this music is in blindfold test. “Capricorn” shows us what we lost when Williams gave up on symphonic writing.

11. Aquarius Is there a taste of Tchaikovsky at his most bucolic in this lilting little number? The brass sound unusually convincing when playing double-time swing figures, and Diehl renders the “classical” piano part in a polished manner. Again, few keyboard artists have Diehl’s range.

12. Pisces Williams concludes her astrological survey with a song. The excellent soprano Mikaela Bennett has a career that straddles opera and musical theatre, and thus is a perfect choice for this unusual circumstance. I’ve never heard lyrics quite like this surreal poem before:

Life’s a game I play for the best of it 
Score the top I don’t want the rest of it 
If I play my heart should do it for the warmth 

By the start forever I do repeat 
Love has made me lucky, for sure in need 
I can win whenever I make the start 

I don’t mind when sometimes I take a fall 
Doesn’t bring me down because all in all 
What is living, taking, giving? 

Just forever 

Life’s a game I played 
Staying on the side of the winning team 

Life is a game whenever you come from behind 

You begin to win like me

The fantastical lyric (accompanied by wandering chromatic motion) sends the suite off into stars, a message for us all to keep blending the best from all sides of American music.