Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams was an AfricanAmerican jazz pianist, composer, and vocalist. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded more than one hundred records . Williams wrote and arranged for such bandleaders as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Dizzy Gillespie, and many others.
Williams was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of eleven children. As a very young child she taught herself to play the piano and at the age of six, Mary Lou was already helping to support her ten halfbrothers and sisters by playing at parties. She began performing publicly at the age of seven, when she became known admiringly in Pittsburgh as the little piano girl of East Liberty. She became a professional musician in her teens and she cited Lovie Austin as her greatest influence.
Source: Wikipedia