Pianist Aaron Diehl honoring Pittsburgh jazz pioneer with album, concert

Pianist Aaron Diehl will be paying tribute to a groundbreaking jazz pioneer with Pittsburgh ties twice this month.

That trailblazer would be Mary Lou Williams, who grew up in Pittsburgh and graduated from Westinghouse High School. She’s considered one of the best female jazz composers and pianists of all time.

First, Diehl will partner with flutist Brandon Patrick George to present “Songs of Black America” on Sept. 11 at Point Park University’s PNC Theatre in Pittsburgh. One of the featured numbers is “Blues for Peter,” written by Williams, who died in 1981.

And on Sept. 15, Diehl will be releasing his latest album, “Zodiac Suite,” which will be the first full studio recording of Williams’ 1945 compositions. The 12-piece series includes each of the astrological signs, all inspired by fellow musicians and entertainers like Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, just to name a few.

“To me, this arrangement is a microcosm of Mary Lou’s life story, both personally and professionally, that came with significant triumphs and setbacks,” Diehl said in a phone interview from Brooklyn, N.Y. “I think the ‘Zodiac’ really, in a way, is like one of her tour de force pieces. But in particular, this arrangement really speaks to what her sights were set on at this period of time, expanding beyond the swing tradition that she came out of.”

Williams’ “Zodiac Suite” fused jazz and classical music together, yet only two performances took place. A recording of the Dec. 31, 1945, premiere resurfaced in the 1990s and was released on CD.

“You can hear there are a lot of rough edges to the performance but also some very great moments,” Diehl said.

Diehl, who trained at the Juilliard School in New York, first learned about Williams from Father Peter O’Brien, a Jesuit priest who was also Williams’ manager. During the covid-19 pandemic, Diehl found the time to tackle the project, which included a challenge in the “cleanup” of an arrangement published in 2011.

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“Even taking the last three years and sort of taking this project on myself — nobody was really interested in doing this but me — and having to do some detective work and figure out what Mary Lou Williams’ intentions might have been and also, at the same time, in the spirit of the music, kind of taking a few liberties in terms of where people might solo and improvise,” Diehl said, “there’s sort of been this balancing act with what I’ve had to try to do with respect to how this music is performed and how it’s recorded.”

Recorded with The Knights, a New York-based orchestra, Diehl’s version pays tribute to a personal role model and an influential composer, whose music and impact is still felt today.

“Another thing that was very important for Williams was to avoid the traps of being pigeonholed just as a woman, and a Black woman at that,” Diehl said. “She simply wanted to be respected as a great musician and nothing else.”