Colmar Jazz Festival: Umlaut Big Band/Mary's Idea  

Opening act: Garance Quartet at 8.15pm - Free admission subject to availability | Free seating in the Theatre foyer
The Umlaut Big Band is an orchestra of fourteen musicians which, since 2011, under the impetus of Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, has been exploring both the historical Big Band repertoire (1920-1940) based on rare sound and manuscript archives, and a more contemporary creative repertoire. Following the example of the early music orchestras, the group's historical research is based on the firm conviction that arrangers, rarely featured in the history of jazz, are creators who are constantly inventing new forms. Born of a "generation of musicians ready to move from one extreme of jazz to the other" (Jazz Magazine), the group favours acoustics and warm atmospheres, from large concert halls to village squares.
Mary's Idea
Highlighting a key female figure in the history of jazz and its evolution
Mary Lou Williams is a musician who has traversed the history of jazz, always remaining permeable to its various mutations, close to young musicians and constantly reinventing herself. Starting out as a pianist on stage and an arranger in the background for Andy Kirk's orchestra, the woman who aroused the curiosity of the public - there were very few women instrumentalists in this male-dominated field - became the mentor of Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie in the 1940s. At the same time, she wrote for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, collaborated with Cecil Taylor and Buster Williams in the 1970s, and left an ambitious suite retracing the history of jazz unfinished when she died. This is the first time that Mary Lou Williams' work has been considered in its entirety, in a way that sheds new light on an unjustly neglected figure.
Continue your discovery of this forgotten figure of jazz with the life-size investigation game "Mary Lou Williams".