women in jazz and the blues

Americans don't realize how important jazz is," she told the New York Post in 1975. "It's healing for the soul. It should be played everywhere — in churches, nightclubs, everywhere. We have to use every place we can."

Rebeka Zajc a pianist in her first bachelor year from Slovenia thought, “If there were more female teachers there would be more female students, so we can see examples that motivate us ”.

Julia, an Electric Bass player in her fourth bachelor year from the Netherlands told me, “there is social discrimination, guys look for a player and they don’t want it to be a girl because then it breaks up the boys club.” The problem here, as Allison put it is that “Jazz is a social genre”. Liya agreed telling me “I’ve just been reading the... See more

“I was doing a concert in Groningen and I needed to prepare a band, there was a bass player and we played a couple of songs, then I said something about the number of bars and he corrected me. I felt like that it wasn’t really about that, it was more the fact he didn’t trust my knowledge because I am a woman and he didn’t like that I was the leade... See more

It began with classical orchestras who saw that blind auditions increased the likelihood that a woman would be hired by between 25 and 46 percent, now many more industries both creative and corporate are following.

The current state of the industry is a result of its past, a past reinforced by institutions who focus on the male masters; Armstrong, Monk, Gillespie. Mary Lou Williams mentored Monk and Gillespie, Lil Hardin Armstrong played piano, composed and arranged for most of the important hot bands in New Orleans, but they have become forgotten footnotes... See more