In celebration of Women’s History Month, WMPG’s Jazz At The Movies and the Portland Conservatory of Music are proud to present the award-winning documentary Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band.

One of the greatest jazz pianists, composers, and arrangers of all time, Mary Lou Williams was a walking history of jazz. A child prodigy who could play everything from classical to boogie woogie and swing, to bebop and beyond, Williams was an innovator who helped create the sound of 20th century America. As a black woman in jazz, she faced the ever persistent challenges of sexism and racism, but Mary Lou never allowed that to stop her. She wrote wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and was a mentor to such musicians as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. After converting to Catholicism in the mid 1950s, Williams devoted her later years to caring for musicians in need and teaching younger generations about jazz’s rich African American heritage.

It’s FREE and it’s bound to swing.