Jazz lecture and performance planned at Fairfield University | Press Releases

Linda Dahl, author of Morning Glory, a biography of the life of jazz musician Mary Lou Williams, will discuss her book and its subject on Thursday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m., in the university's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Morning Glory takes a look at one of our nation's least known and most influential jazz musicians. In a career spanning more than fifty years, Williams lived and performed though all the eras of jazz and always had a sense of the value of her African-American musical heritage. Gene Santoro of The New York Times Book Review said, "Her capacity to absorb new sounds and idioms into her own voice and her restless quest to forge new forms of jazz composition had few equals."

Using Williams' thoroughly documented journals, Linda Dahl reveals both the glamorous and dark sides of the jazz life in which Williams succeeded against great odds. Dahl is also the author of Stormy Weather, the essential work on women in blues and jazz. Ms. Dahl will appear on stage with Brian Torff, the university's music program director, who worked with Ms. Williams during the 1970s.

The program will also be interspersed with musical interludes by the Florence Melnotte Trio. Drummer Steve Johns and bassist Brian Torff will accompany Ms. Melnotte, a renowned jazz pianist from Paris.

The lecture, sponsored by Fairfield University's Music Program, Black Studies Program, Women's Studies Program and FACE Committee, is free and open to the public. For more information call (203) 254-4000, ext. 2458.