Deanna Witkowski

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Jason Gardner

A close-up of Deanna Witkowski.

Deanna Witkowski

Iconic composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams was born on May 8, 1910, and Cafe Coda will celebrate her life and music with a full day of events, kicking off at 1 p.m. with a special edition of the Madison Jazz Jam, led by Dan VanZeeland and the Mount Horeb High School Combo. At 3 p.m., the 2015 documentary Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band will be shown; at 5 p.m., a viewing party for a livestream from the Kennedy Center features a performance of Remember Me: Mary Lou Williams in Poetry and Music by Madison poet Fabu Phillis Carter and pianist Jane Reynolds. And at 7 p.m., a concert featuring music by Williams will be presented by Deanna Witkowski, a pianist, composer and author of the book Mary Lou Williams: Music For The Soul. Find tickets for the 7 p.m. concert at cafecoda.club; other events are free.

media release: Fabu Phillis Carter, the city of Madison’s first African American poet laureate as well as a scholar and educator, and Jane Reynolds, the superb jazz pianist and retired co-host of “Strictly Jazz Sounds” on WORT-FM, will perform their unique program – “Remember Me: Mary Lou Williams in Poetry and Music” – on Saturday, May 10, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as part of the 2025 Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival.

Fifteen years ago, in 2010, our community celebrated the 100th birthday of Mary Lou Williams, the legendary jazz pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader and educator who conducted a memorable residency at the UW-Madison in 1976. Under the guidance of artistic co-directors Fabu and Jane, and with assistance from the Mary Lou Williams Foundation and the Institute of Jazz Studies, our local Centennial Committee produced a diverse year-long array of concerts of Mary Lou's music and educational programs that illuminated her contributions to American music and culture, engaging more than 8,000 people in the process. One of the Centennial Celebration’s highlights was the jazz-and-poetry program about Mary Lou that Fabu and Jane delivered at concert halls, schools, and other venues across Dane County.

Since then, Fabu has dreamed of presenting her Mary Lou-inspired poetry at the Kennedy Center as part of the annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival hosted by the great jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. Fortuitously, through an encounter with Ms. Bridgewater when she headlined the 2024 Madison Jazz Fest, the Kennedy Center invited Fabu and Jane to present an updated version of their jazz-and-poetry program at this year's Mary Lou Williams festival. Their performance is scheduled for Saturday, May 10th, at 6:00pm (EDT), on the Center’s Millennium Stage, just prior to the Festival’s final headline concerts.

Our community members won’t have to travel to D.C., though, to see this milestone performance by Fabu and Jane, as Café CODA (1224 Williamson Street) will host a “watch party” for the livestream of their May 10th performance, starting at 5:00pm CDT.  In addition, just prior to the livestream at 3:30pm, Café CODA will show the great documentary film, “Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band."  Both events will be free and open to the public.  Bar service will be available, and attendees are welcome to bring food with them into the club.

Following the livestream, at 7 pm: 

Award-winning pianist and author Deanna Witkowski will perform a solo concert to cap off Café CODA’s special four-part tribute to the legendary jazz musician Mary Lou Williams on the occasion of her 115th birthday. (Previously announced performer Bethany Pickens Trio will be unable to appear.)

Ms. Witkowski is one of America's foremost interpreters of, and authorities on, the music of Ms. Williams. Witkowski’s 2022 album of Ms. Williams’ music, Force of Nature, reached #5 on the JazzWeek nationwide radio chart and remained in the top 10 most played albums on jazz radio for over 10 weeks, and her book, Mary Lou Williams: Music For The Soul, won the 2022 ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award and the 2022 Jazz Journalists Association Award for Biography of the Year. 

Ms. Witkowski has presented at the Kennedy Center, Duke University, and Fordham University, and performed Williams’ compositions as a featured guest with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Sponsored by Madison Music Collective and Madison Jazz Society.

Unable to get down to Café CODA that day?  No problem.  You’ll be able to watch the livestream of Fabu and Jane’s performance (starting at 5:00pm CDT) by going to the Kennedy Center’s Digital Stage website, scrolling over to Fabu and Jane’s Millennium Stage event, and clicking on the “Watch Now” link.  And if you’re a Madison Public Library cardholder or have a UW ID, you’ll be able to view the documentary film at any time, at no cost, via the library’s Kanopy program.

Performing at the Kennedy Center is a rare opportunity for Madison-based artists, and it will be a career-capping milestone for Fabu and Jane.  Not only a dream come true for Fabu, this performance will be a chance for Jane to honor her mother, a very fine pianist who gave it up to join in managing the family’s hotel, where the Kennedys stayed while on the campaign trail in 1960.  She will be there in spirit with Jane at the Kennedy Center.