{"id":304,"date":"2010-03-12T11:08:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T16:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2010\/03\/she_plays_like_a_girl_great\/"},"modified":"2019-09-13T12:59:46","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T16:59:46","slug":"she_plays_like_a_girl_great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/03\/she_plays_like_a_girl_great.html","title":{"rendered":"She plays like a girl? That’s hot — and cool!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women are making future jazz history — despite seldom showing up in top high school band competitions. My new\u00c2\u00a0column<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0in City Arts – New York’s Review of Culture<\/i>, has local names and immediate dates; jazz gender parity is a slow movement but my bet is it’s irreversible.<\/p>\n


\nHaving heard Cassandra Wilson<\/a> last night at the Blue Note perform in control and thrilling with her band — as Betty Carter<\/a> used to do — I’m tempted to think singers are still the point people persuading listeners that females swing hard and improvise brilliantly. But from Geri Allen<\/a> to Jamie Baum<\/a> to Cindy Blackman<\/a> to Carla Bley<\/a> to\u00c2\u00a0Jane Ira Bloom<\/a> to JoAnn Brackeen<\/a> to\u00c2\u00a0Sylvie Courvoisier <\/a>to Marilyn Crispell<\/a> to Connie Crothers<\/a> to\u00c2\u00a0Claire Daly<\/a> to Amina Figarova<\/a> to Mary Halvorson<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(and Jessica Pavone<\/a>) to Ingrid Jensen<\/a> to Virginia Mayhew<\/a> to Myra Melford<\/a> to Allison Miller<\/a> to Nicole Mitchell<\/a> to Amina Claudine Myers<\/a> to\u00c2\u00a0Linda Oh<\/a> to Tineke Postma<\/a> to Matana Roberts<\/a> to Angelica Sanchez<\/a> to Irene Schweizer<\/a> to Jenny Scheinman<\/a> to Sara Schoenbeck<\/a> to way more than these springing immediately to mind, there are enough highly evolved, deeply creative bandleading pianists, drummers, guitarists, trumpeters, saxophonists, bassists– did everyone see that New Yorker profile of Esperanza Spalding<\/a>? — to encourage young people that instrumental prowess is not a strictly male prerogative, and nor should anyone want it to be. (I’m pushing this less as a sensitive guy than because I assume all humans are musical to some degree, and I want to hear the best, not only the best men).<\/p>\n

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Disturbingly, a few weeks back I attended an address by Wynton Marsalis<\/a> to a couple of classes of high school music students after a strong “Basie and the Blues” concert by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra<\/a>. Asked by one girl in the crowd if there were ever women playing in that world-famous ensemble, Wynton mentioned that Erica von Kleist<\/a> subs for Ted Nash<\/a>, and that there have been women joining the band for specific gigs, but that there are so few job openings that blind auditions to fill them are not viable, and that such virtuosic mastery of the breadth of jazz’s historical styles is necessary that current JALCO members know every musician in the U.S. who could fill the bill anyway. “This is strictly a meritocracy,” Wynton explained. That being so, I bet there’s more than one woman right now sharpening her skills so as to storm that citadel, and predict that within 18 months (why should it take so long? Little attrition?) the band bus will be co-ed.<\/div>\n
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Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society<\/a> is already so integrated, as is Taylor Ho Bynum and Abraham Gomez-Delgado’s Positive Catastrophe<\/a> and of course Maria Schneider’s orchestra<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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I’ll try to keep track of personnel in other big bands — Mingus Big Band? Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra? Vanguard Jazz Orchestra? the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra? Charles Tolliver Big Band? Fat Cat Big Band (yes), Gerald Wilson Orchestra (yes), Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic (yes, yes) — though should this really be necessary? (No.)<\/div>\n
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A recent email from Mary Jo Papich, president of the Jazz Education Network<\/a> (which is positioning itself as the successor to the International Association for Jazz Education) presented her thoughts about the current disparity thusly:<\/div>\n
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It is a major concern of mine and we have a session on it
\nat the upcoming JEN conf in St. Louis.\u00c2\u00a0 WHY does it exist?\u00c2\u00a0 I believe
\nit starts way back to the day when a young girl picks up an instrument and is
\nnot encouraged (in general) to play trumpet, trombone, drums, bass….jazz
\ninstruments.\u00c2\u00a0 Notice the girls are almost always on piano and sax.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Then you add to the fact that the women students mostly
\nhave male band directors as they go into HS where active jazz programs are . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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I thought that just being a good example of an active
\nfemale jazz band director would be enough . . . but it hasn’t been. The odds
\nstill are not that good. One thing for certain, we must encourage, nurture, empower <\/i>young women with the confidence they need to succeed in jazz
\nperformance. I spoke last weekend to the only girl in the National Honors
\nJazz Band of America in Indy [Indiana] and I asked her what it
\nwas like….she said, “I am not used to being the only girl playing in a
\njazz band so I was shocked that I was. Yes, I was intimidated at
\nfirst…but after getting to know them and playing with them, I am one of them. It’s all cool now.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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If it’s not all cool yet where you are, what can be done to make it so? Responses (as always) welcome. Remember The International Sweethearts of Rhythm<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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