Jazz exitsts in a state of continuous change. Perhaps unique in all the worlds' great art forms, jazz seems to demand of its practitioners that something personal be added that can then be passed along to others.

The evolution of jazz is the work of visionaries who build on what came before them. While it is a process that will never stop, it will likely never again experience the rapid expansion and re-invention that marked it's first decades. It was during these years that Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Roy Eldridge, Billy Strayhorn, Ray Brown, Erroll Garner, Art Blakey, Ahmad Jamal and others left Pittsburgh to become some of the most important innovators in America's most important music.

With roots in Pittsburgh, they came from an environment that both nurtured their talents and challenged them to become great. The center of this was the African American Musicians, Local 471 which fostered an environment of support and encouragement in the face of the segregation that denied them the opportunity to participate fully in Pittsburgh's economy.

The Pittsburgh names celebrated by jazz fans the world over for more than half a century as “Legends of Jazz” are more than just the sum total of their own accomplishments. They are extensions of the community that helped make them who they were.

It is these people and what they've left us that we honor when we celebrate 2008 as marking 100 years of jazz in Pittsburgh.

Here are some important Pittsburgh links for more information:

The African American Jazz Preservation Society, www.blackjazzpittsburgh.org
The Jazz Workshop, www.jazzworkshopinc.org
Pittsburgh Jazz Society, www.pittsburghjazz.org
The National Endowment for the Humanities report on Pittsburgh's Past
University of Pittsburgh
Explore PA History
A brief look at Pittsburgh's Jazz legacy, hosted by Tony Mowod

Additional Audio Files, Reading Material and Links:

Mary Lou Williams
Audio Biography compiled by Bob Studebaker

Mary Lou Williams Biography
"Jazz Profiles" featuing Mary Lou Williams
"Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams" by Linda Dahl, 1999.
"An Afternoon with Mary Lou Williams" by Stanley Dance (1964 interview) Jazz Journal International. October, 1989
"Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams" by Tammy Kernodle, 2004.
"American Women in Jazz, 1900 to the Present: Their Words, Lives and Music" by Sally Placksin, 1982.
Jazz Women at the Keyboard" by Mary Unterbink, 1983.
"Conversation with Mary Lou Williams, First Lady of the Jazz Keyboard" by Mary Lou Williams and D. Antoinette Handy, Black Perspective in Music. (1980)