Text transcribed from caption: C-46224 PRIEST AND PIANIST FORM UNUSUAL TEAM NEW YORK -- Father Peter O’Brien, S.J., introduces the Mary Lou Williams Trio at a concert. The priest and the pianist are a team. “Her contribution to me is very simple to explain,” the assistant pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola Church in New York says. “She’s my spiritual adviser.” For his part, the Jesuit priest has served as business manager for the jazz pianist and composer since 1970. An unusual occupation for a man who spends most of his time preaching, visiting the ill, or teaching religion to grade school students? “I am not the same as a Las Vegas act manager,” Father O’Brien explains. “Mary Lou is one of the few performers I would call a true artist, and she is completely devoted to jazz.” Describing the relevance of all this to a man of the cloth, he notes that “true jazz is a product of oppression and symbolizes man’s spiritual triumph over it, so it is a very religious experience.” This is particularly true of Miss Williams’ music, which includes such pieces as her own “Hymn in Honor of St. Martin de Porres” and “Mary Lou’s Mass.” He says his motivation for becoming her business manager “really stems from by belief that an artist is someone who has been blesses [sic] with a rare gift, and that gift should have its place in the world for everyone to see.” Credit Must Read: RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE PHOTO (C-NY-11A-74-DS)