When Mary Lou Williams was only eleven, Pittsburgh's jazzbos, including Pianist Earl ("Father") Hines, were already calling for her after school to come and jam with them. Count Basie and Duke Ellington used to slide off their piano benches so she could sit down and they could listen. The night "Satchmo"
Armstrong first heard her in Harlem, he picked her up and kissed her.
Last week, Mary Lou was still playing the same kind of exciting piano in a jammed Greenwich Village basement bistro called the Village Vanguard—even though no bigwigs of jazz happened to be around to do any picking up and...
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