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PERFORMANCES in SWING: a CULTURAL HISTORY of WOMEN SINGERS of BIG BANDS, 1930S-1950S

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PERFORMANCES in SWING: a CULTURAL HISTORY of WOMEN SINGERS of BIG BANDS, 1930S-1950S PERFORMANCES IN SWING: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF WOMEN SINGERS OF BIG BANDS, 1930s-1950s A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN STUDIES AUGUST 2018 By Jeanette Hall Dissertation Committee: Mari Yoshihara, Chairperson Elizabeth Colwill Jonna Eagle Vernadette V. Gonzalez Richard C. Rath Keywords: big band, singer, jazz studies, music history, intersectionality, performance Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have come to fruition without the help and support of many people. First, I would like to thank Mari Yoshihara for her guidance and mentorship in many capacities throughout my graduate career. She challenged me to think deeply and critically about music and storytelling. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Colwill, who expanded my thinking in the realm of performance studies and who always offered support and enthusiasm for my projects. My gratitude also extends to Jonna Eagle who gave feedback from near and far. Thank you to Richard C. Rath for his guidance and encouragement with my projects, and for always reminding me to keep listening to the sounds of the music. Thank you to Vernadette Gonzalez for her feedback and mentorship, and for her encouragement in those moments when writing a dissertation felt like “running uphill in the rain.” I would also like to express my gratitude to the American Studies department at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa for the institutional support. Many, many thanks to my writing group—Eriza Bareng, Yu Jung Lee, Kevin Lim, Yanli Luo, Sanae Nakatani, Stacy Nojima, Yuka Polovina, and Yohei Sekiguchi—who gave much support and feedback throughout the writing process. Special thank you to Yuka Polovina, who always reminded me to keep the big picture in mind and who continually encouraged me. Her conversations and suggestions were key at many stages of this project. Thank you to Eriza Bareng for coffee shop chats, study sessions, and camaraderie. And another special thank you to Stacy Nojima—my running and writing partner. Her ongoing support, from critical discussions to scheduling strategies, played an immense role in this project. Thank you to other colleagues in the American Studies department including Logan Narikawa, Katherine Achacoso, Keiko Fukunishi, Ava Ladner, and ii Pahole Sookkasikon for their ongoing encouragement and support. Thanks also to Billie Lee, a fantastic thought-partner and question-asker. Thank you to the archivists at the Chicago Jazz Archive at the University of Chicago, Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University, the New York Public Library Center for the Performing Arts, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Irving S. Gilmore Library at Yale University, and Rutgers Institute for Jazz Studies. Their knowledge and guidance greatly helped this project take shape. Thank you to Andrew Torres for his ongoing support throughout this project (and for making all of my archival research trips into his vacations.) Finally, thank you to my parents, John and Janet Hall, who endlessly encouraged me to pursue my dreams. iii Abstract Although women singers of big bands from the 1930s to the 1950s claimed the microphone and the spotlight, few were taken seriously as musicians or as key players in American jazz and popular music history. This project—a cultural history—aims to shine a spotlight once again on those singers. My project examines less-known and analyzed women singers—including Helen Humes, Kay Starr, Helen Forrest, Thelma Carpenter, Louise Tobin, and Maxine Sullivan—to understand why and how these women’s stories were etched into history in ways that often minimized their contributions, music, and labor. Both the mainstream press and music magazines vigorously debated these singers’ authenticity, vocal talent, and ability to connect with a blues and jazz tradition, often crafting predictable narratives about singers’ lives and stories. Through intersectional analysis, I demonstrate how big band singers’ music performances and performances of identity complicated these predictable narratives by challenging: traditional boundaries of genre (such as categories of jazz, blues, and popular music), the black-white binary present in jazz discourse, acceptable expressions of womanhood and sexuality, and expectations of “private” issues remaining apart from the public realm. My dissertation approaches performance through an interdisciplinary research practice, utilizing cultural studies, sound studies, performances studies, music, and history to understand the social, cultural, and political effects of various performance practices found within women’s jazz singing. I also conduct discourse analysis of newspapers, performance reviews, and record reviews in magazines like Down Beat, Billboard, and Metronome to gain insight into how communities received, endorsed, or scrutinized singers. Accounting for big band singers’ performances of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, body, and voice allows us to conceptualize their life stories and music differently, showing the power of performances in conveying the iv limitations and constructions of societal norms to audiences. These performances highlight the significance of women’s gendered labor in contrast to the often reductionist stories told in dominant discourse. This project demonstrates how past music critics worked to maintain jazz as an exclusive, masculine domain in how they wrote about women singers, but also shows how singers both shaped and contested boundaries of jazz and popular music. v Table of Contents Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................................................ii Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................iv Introduction .....................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: The Politics of Storytelling in the Jazz Archive: Gender, Race, and Women Jazz Singers of Big Bands.....................................................................................................................31 Chapter 2: From “Utility Singer” to Solo Stardom: Kay Starr and the Politics of Authenticity...65 Chapter 3: Performances of Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Helen Forrest’s Autobiography I Had the Craziest Dream .............................................................................................................107 Chapter 4: The Aging Body & Voice: Women Singers’ Performances in Big Band Nostalgia Tours............................................................................................................................................151 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................205 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................212 vi Introduction Women jazz singers of big bands in the 1930s and 1940s were many, but the stories we hear about them are few. Many women singers of big bands defied traditional categories, labels, and genres, using performance to navigate challenging circumstances. Their stories complicate familiar understandings of jazz and popular music that often simplify and reduce women singers’ lives and experiences to narratives that sketch troubled upbringings to immediate success in the spotlight. Singers such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald have become the stand-ins for women’s jazz and jazz singing. Focusing on the dominant narratives of these figures serves to erase the numerous other singers who played in similar circuits during their lifetimes. Shifting attention to the stories of the many women big band singers of the Swing Era shows the broad range of female jazz singers’ experiences, as well as their contributions. The diverse stories of women singers of big bands illustrate how women used performance as a tool to express and shift identities according to circumstance and to market themselves and their music. Through interviews, autobiographies, and live performances, they helped to craft their own public image. Women singers of big bands in particular occupied a challenging position in the jazz scene. The mainstream press seldom considered these singers to be genuine jazz musicians and instead viewed them mostly as entertaining complements to the more “serious” male instrumentalists with whom they sang. For example, Velma Middleton, a vocalist who sang with Louis Armstrong’s big bands and small groups from 1942 to 1961, is rarely remembered as a figure associated with jazz. Instead, she is most known for her appearance, being described 1 solely as “a 300-pounder.”1 Other women jazz singers were put on stage with big bands first for their glamorous appearances, and second, for their singing. Singers functioned as spectacles for the audience, as bandleaders sought a token female presence to serve primarily as either “eye candy” or comic relief. For instance, one article in a 1941 issue of Music and Rhythm titled “Why Vocalists Go Over Big” highlighted images of female vocalists’ appearances, attributing the singers’ success to glamour, naiveté, feeling, showmanship, novelty, and romance.2 “‘Girl singer’ as eye candy” was commonly reflected in the newspapers and magazines
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