Mary Lou Williams the Left Handed Piano Player Dominates Kansas City Jazz

Mary Elfrieda Scruggs was born on May 8, 1910.  After arriving in Kansas City, she met and married John Williams, a skilled saxophone and clarinet player.  Her reputation as a left-handed piano player who improvised arrangements of standards helped spread teh jazz style known as Kansas City swing.  She became the toast of Europe and a jazz legend in a world dominated by black men.  She taught at Duke University as an Artist-in-Residence from 1977 until her death from cancer in 1981.

Her names were Mary Lou Williams, Mary Elfrieda Scruggs, or Mary Lou Burley, or the Little Piano Girl (American musician, composer and educator).

Williams was long regarded as the only significant female musician in jazz, both as an instrumentalist and as a composer.  She was a swing pianist, with a lightly rocking, legato manner based on subtly varied stride and boogie-woogie bass pattern. 

Mary Lou Williams is considered the First Lady of Jazz and Kansas City is fortunate to have her in its communicty creating the Kansas City Jazz swing.

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