Are Becoming Key Players

TAIPEI TIMES MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9 , 2 0 0 9 PAGE 1 3 he man sitting in front of me in Ronnie 1980s, is convinced that it’s still more difficult Scott’s jazz club got me thinking. I was for women to get gigs — whether solo or T there to hear the Portico Quartet, but as bandleaders: “In certain jazz clubs they women had instead spent the first half listening to hardly ever book any women musicians. I’ve the sound of his voice as he chatted to his been told indirectly that I can’t get a gig in companion — so I had asked him to be quiet. a club because they’ve already got a woman At the end of the gig he apologized a little too the week before. A woman who is playing contritely for spoiling my enjoyment. Then a different style of music than me, on a Jazz: he added “Why are you here, anyway? Is your different instrument.” boyfriend in the band?” Assumptions about which instruments In jazz, though it seems a woman’s are The answer was no, but it was the are “suitable” for men and for women place is behind the mic, female question that mattered. This man may have appear to begin with what boys and girls are been a sexist throwback, but I wondered if encouraged to learn at school. An extensive instrumentalists are making headway there could be any basis to his assumption survey of school music lessons in the UK that I could not have been there out of my last year found that most girls were learning BY Laura BarneTT own appreciation of the music. I looked traditionally “feminine” instruments such THE GUARDIAN, LONDON becoming around the club. The band were all men. as the harp and flute, while boys dominated Most of the audience were men, except for a hugely on the kinds of instruments needed group of women whose shouts and whoops for jazz — guitar, brass, drums and bass. This made me think they really were with the translates, naturally, into fewer girls going on band. It made me wonder where, and how, to study jazz at music college. women fit into jazz. Of the 92 jazz students currently enrolled key The short answer, of course, is at the at London’s Trinity College of Music, for microphone. Many of the best jazz singers instance, just 11 are women. Clowes graduated have been, and still are, women — from from the Royal Academy of Music in London Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, to the in 2003 as the only female jazz instrumentalist British singing star Claire Martin, and in her year. American stand-up comic and scat maestro Schneider believes the problem starts players Lea DeLaria. Female jazz instrumentalists are even earlier. “To be a jazz musician,” she a much rarer breed. says, “requires a huge amount of alone time. All-woman ensembles proliferated on both Practicing, being in your own head. Working sides of the Atlantic during World War II, on your own thing. I don’t think that young but most of them disappeared shortly after. girls are generally oriented to that kind of A number of women instrumentalists have thinking. It’s very deep-seated.” risen to the highest levels — among them Cartwright goes even further. She’s wary the American pianists, composers and band of taking the generalization too far, but admits leaders Mary Lou Williams, Carla Bley, and that jazz, with its emphasis on improvisation Toshiko Akiyoshi and, more recently, Maria and its history of competitiveness between Schneider, and percussionist Terri Lyne players, could appeal more naturally to men Carrington. But many remain best known for than to women. their collaborations with more famous men “Men have always defined what jazz is — Williams, for instance, wrote arrangements about,” she says. “Jam sessions, cutting for Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington, and contests, showing somebody else up on the Lil Hardin Armstrong is more often referred bandstand. I’m not saying that women can’t to as Louis Armstrong’s second wife than as a do that, but it’s less appealing for the majority composer and bandleader in her own right. of women.” In the early days of jazz, scorn was Cartwright has also observed, as I did poured on the very possibility of women at Ronnie Scott’s, a larger number of men as instrumentalists. In February 1938, than women in jazz audiences — though she for instance, an editorial appeared in the doesn’t think audiences are more male for American jazz magazine Down Beat under the jazz than for any other kind of music, and a headline Why Women Musicians Are Inferior. 2003 survey of audiences by the information “The woman musician never was born,” it provider Jazz Services had jazz fans down read, “capable of sending anyone further than as 56 percent male. But according to jazz the nearest exit.” promoter John Cumming, director of Serious The hugely successful composer Maria Productions, the company behind many Schneider could not, of course, be further of the UK’s largest-scale jazz concerts, the from that stereotype. She puts the lack of atmosphere at gigs can still feel definitively top women instrumentalists in jazz down to male — and obsessive. historical precedent rather than prejudice. “The average audience member is probably “One really can’t ignore the fact,” she says, male, and is very knowledgeable about jazz “that when jazz began, it wasn’t conducive — he may even have a certain anorak quality,” to being a woman at that time. Only a few he says. “Trainspottery, you might say.” women did it — Marylou Williams, Lil Hardin Cartwright laughs at this, and concedes Armstrong. They were comfortable in that that Cumming may have a point. “You could world somehow. But I don’t think many say,” she says, “that in terms of the devotion it women were, and maybe still are. It’s not an inspires in some men, jazz is a bit like cricket.” easy life.” So what, if anything, can be done to Pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi, who has earned encourage more women to get into jazz? 14 Grammy nominations in her 50-year career, “All you can do is expose girls to lots agrees. “During the big band years, most of different music from a young age,” says musicians did one-nighters,” she says. “Duke Akiyoshi. Even Cartwright is unequivocal Ellington used to travel by bus. Having a on this point. “I can understand why women woman could be inconvenient — they only like to play together,” she says, “but I don’t had one bathroom, and then they’d need a think the way forward is to encourage all- separate dressing room for the woman at the female groups.” venue. So the band leader might shy away Clowes agrees. “It just attracts the wrong from having a woman player.” attention. It’s not cool.” Even if a woman did get out on the road, The only people who need help are those she could find herself the object of unwanted who persist with the idea that a woman at a attention. One perhaps apocryphal story has the jazz gig can only possibly be there to sing, or 1920s American bandleader Blanche Calloway, to gaze dewy-eyed at her boyfriend on stage. for instance, arrested while on tour for using a Women instrumentalists, as Schneider puts toilet in a roadside gas station at 6am. it, are meanwhile quietly helping themselves Attitudes have changed since then — but — through hard work, determination, and not as much as you might think. sheer talent: “With women, maybe it’s like Guitarist Deirdre Cartwright, whose all- this. If you’re mediocre, you might have a woman group the Guest Stars was one of the tough time. If you’re really good, nobody can Clockwise from above: Singer Lizz Wright, album art for jazz musician Esperanza Spalding’s CD Esperanza, Ella Fitzgerald immortalized on a US Postal most successful British touring bands of the deny it.” Service stamp, and singer Sophie Milman — just a few of the many female artists who have chipped away at jazz’s glass ceiling. PHOTOS: BLOOMBERG PLANET Batman star Christian Bale apologized cinematographer Shane Hurlbut for from sales and rentals of the game Friday for his expletive-laden tantrum apparently wandering into the actor’s line The Godfather: The Game, licensed by during filming of a new Terminator film, of vision. 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Police later said the actor would face Above: Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is gathering Paramount attorney Hajir Ardebili was Bale told the show’s hosts.

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