330 PART 3 | FROM WORLD WAR I THROUGH WORLD WAR II
such as sonata form, where the music begins with clear, stable
harmony and rhythm only to be disrupted by later events, Elling-
ton’s piece begins on a note of manic disconnection, settles into a
groove, hits a point of calm, and then (after the listener turns the
record over) reverses the process in “Crescendo in Blue.” And it is
unifi ed not only by the blues harmonic progression that underlies
all twenty-two of its choruses but also by the melodic motive that
begins the entire piece, returns briefl y in chorus 7, then reappears
at the beginning of the “Crescendo” and is heard in fi ve of its twelve
choruses.
Because Ellington wrote these extended compositions for
his big band instead of a symphony orchestra and—until Black,
Brown, and Beige—primarily for phonograph records instead of
the concert hall, listeners were comfortable assigning his music
to the popular sphere even while acknowledging its high artis-
tic ambitions. And he expended similar artistic care on many of
his shorter compositions, such as Ko-Ko (1940), a set of minor-key
blues variations with virtually no improvisation that nonethe-
less is universally perceived to be jazz, not classical music. Even
the grandly conceived projects of Ellington’s later years—concert
suites like the Shakespeare-inspired Such Sweet Thunder (1957)
and the series of three Sacred Concerts composed between 1965
and 1973—did little to change Ellington’s status as America’s pre-
mier jazz composer.
Ellington’s infl uence had an immediate impact on other jazz musicians. One
was Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981), a brilliant pianist and arranger for leading
big bands such as those of Benny Goodman and Ellington himself. After reading
a book about astrology, she was inspired to compose her Zodiac Suite, in which
each movement portrays musician friends who share a common sun sign. The
fi rst movement, “Aries,” for example, is a portrait of both Ben Webster, then
playing tenor sax in Ellington’s band, and Billie Holiday. Williams premiered the
Zodiac Suite in the early 1940s on her weekly radio show in New York City, one
movement per week, and in 1945 recorded it as a set of six 78-rpm discs. The tiny
label that released the album was run by Moe Asch, a political leftist with a taste
for both jazz and folk music, a fi eld in which he would play an important role
in the postwar years. Though she recorded it with a standard trio (piano, bass,
and drums),Williams clearly imagined a more expansive scoring, which she was
able to indulge the following year, when the New York Philharmonic performed
three movements of the suite at Carnegie Hall.
Ellington and Williams demonstrated that a jazz artist could win the kind of
“highbrow” respect usually reserved for classical musicians without leaving the
popular sphere. In that regard, their music marks a seismic shift in cultural val-
ues in the United States. Beginning with jazz criticism in the 1930s and increas-
ingly in the postwar years, the cultural hierarchy would gradually be dismantled,
as the best musicians came to be appreciated as artists regardless of their musical
style.K A gifted composer, Mary
Lou Williams (1910–1981)
demonstrates the powerful
left hand that also made her
a formidable boogie-woogie
pianist.172028_13_305-331_r3_ko.indd 330 23/01/13 8:39 PM