During her lifetime, jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements. She was a child prodigy who played with Duke Ellington in the 1920s. She was a contemporary of Benny Goodman and Art Blakey. And she influenced younger artists, including Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk.
But it was her last work, unfinished at the time of her death in 1981, that has continued to capture the imagination of music scholars for decades.
The work-in-progress was long considered to be lost to time.
Anthony Kelley, professor of the practice of music at Duke University, recently rediscovered Williams' last-known notes for "History: A Wind Symphony" and worked to complete the composition.
The finished work makes its Duke University debut on April 13 at 8 p.m.
Guest
Anthony Kelley, professor of the practice of music, Duke University