Journal of Jazz Studies

From Women-in-Jazz to Gender-and-Jazz

2025-01-21T08:44:52+00:00

Between 2017 and 2019, the word “gender” flooded marketing materials of U.S.-based jazz institutions, ostensibly taking the place of the word “women.” What does this discursive change reveal to us? Riffing off of Sherrie Tucker’s category of women-in-jazz, this article examines the emergence of a new category, gender-and-jazz. Utilizing online ethnography and an anonymous online survey for non-male musicians, I analyze three different slogans (“Forget about Gender,” “The Future is Female,” and “Jazz without Patriarchy”) in order to examine how gendered jazz tropes transform into slogans, or branding for marketing and promotional materials. I argue that despite the varied language between these slogans, together they strive to accomplish the same goal of gender equity in jazz spaces. In doing so, this article offers a framework on how to “listen” to these slogans in order to understand who they are speaking to, who identifies with them, and how they naturalize, maintain, and challenge pre-established jazz discourses, especially within institutionalized spaces.

Three Strikes As Well

2024-09-30T10:45:23+00:00

In a 1951 Downbeat Magazine, Leonard Feather identified the primary issue facing British jazz pianist Marian McPartland’s work as a musician: she had “three hopeless strikes against her: English, white, and a girl.”

This article explores how Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) women jazz musicians view a similar “three strikes” related to their their cultural, gendered, and musical backgrounds. Following a review of relevant scholarship by Lina Y. S. Fong and Kevin Fellezs, this study consists of my analysis of semi-structured interviews with eleven AAPI women jazz musicians of different nationalities, instruments, and generations.

"Whisper, Say We’re Free”

2025-01-15T17:04:10+00:00

Following the critical success of the 1960 record “We Insist”: Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite, a project which foregrounds Black American and African politics and protest, Roach took this project on tour performing across the United States and Europe. In early 1964, this suite was featured on Belgium's Jazzprisma––a BRT (Belgische Radio en Televisie) network series. Like the album, what stands out is Abbey Lincoln's profound performance and sonic embodiment of Black trauma through the scream in "Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace," however, now it is visible. This paper highlights Lincoln's performance in particular and centers video recording of the 1964 performance as an opportunity to observe, audio-visually, Lincoln’s complete protest aesthetics. My analysis focuses on three main elements: (1) the ways in which extreme close-up camera angles create an abbreviated view of Lincoln's performance, (2) the significance of the international stage and how Lincoln and the other artists are performing the suite’s protest messages to a transnational audience, and (3) how Lincoln confronts and appropriates politics of gender here and how that has carried over through her early career. Thinking with scholars such as Jayna Brown, Daphne Brooks, Eric Porter, and Ingrid Monson who confront issues of intersectionality, timbre, and the voice, I view Lincoln’s scream and improvisation as a sonic signifier of historical violence against Black folks. While these authors focus on the piece in its recorded form, I expand upon their work and consider the audiovisual elements of Lincoln's protest displayed here. I argue that while this 1964 live performance provides an opportunity to visualize Lincoln's scream, a hyper-focus on the scream through extreme close-up camera angles draws attention away from the totality of Lincoln's protest performance.

Jazzwomen

2025-03-07T13:52:07+00:00

In 1978, jazz pianist Marian McPartland signed a contract with Oxford University Press to write a survey history on women in jazz. By 1987, McPartland had given up on the project, instead releasing All In Good Time, a featured collection of previously published works. This case study examines and uncovers McPartland’s unpublished book titled Jazzwomen. Through a close examination of her grant proposals, research notes, transcribed interviews, book proposal, and extant drafts found in her archive, I trace how McPartland’s research attempted to reconfigure the historical narrative of jazz and recover the enduring role women played. Through the intersectional lens of advocacy, which involved collaboration across McPartland’s self-created network, I demonstrate how Jazzwomen represents the many difficulties McPartland and other women faced to produce scholarship on their history.

June Tyson

2025-02-13T09:53:02+00:00

Alongside the growth in feminist jazz scholarship that examines the marginalization of women within jazz practice, this case study continues the critique and revision of jazz historiography begun by scholars such as Lara Pellegrinelli, Sherrie Tucker, and Tracy McMullen by exploring the essential first vocalist in the Sun Ra Arkestra, June Tyson. In this study, I begin with a description of the Arkestra and its notorious leader; next I demonstrate Tyson’s essential role(s) in the ensemble, and I finish by describing some of her experiences in the ensemble. Throughout, I not only ask “who was June Tyson?” but I also explore reasons why many people, including jazz scholars and fans, are not aware of her.

Filipina Singers and Jazz in Post-Colonial Manila

2025-02-07T10:54:57+00:00

Women performing jazz in mid-twentieth century Manila could only be two types of musicians in public – as a singer or a pianist who sings. Bringing together anecdotes from interviews, mainstream media coverage, and analyses from Philippine studies, this paper presents a history of the jazz scene in Manila through the lives of female singers associated with the genre after the Second World War (1946 to 1970). How did a post-colonial region, particularly an American ex-colony, signify and engage with jazz? By illuminating how Filipina singers navigated key encounters, and observing how jazz and singers were identified in Manila’s press and in personal interviews, this paper explores the sociocultural meanings shaping the practice and history of jazz in the Philippines. This case study follows the lived experiences of Priscilla Aristoreñas, Katy de la Cruz, Thelma Quesada, Nora Linda, Dulce Din, Josie Quizon, Annie Brazil, Megan Herrera, Rita Posadas, and Nelda Navarro. As they navigated their gendered pathways and neo-colonial conditions as itinerant musicians in Manila and Asia and the Pacific’s U.S. military bases and entertainment circuit, their jazz identities became radiant. Interlacing their stories will depict how Manila’s scene was shaped by translocal networks along with gendered, racial, and class dynamics, offering a critical understanding of the history of jazz in the Philippines.

“Bring Your Identity With You”

2025-03-03T11:15:31+00:00

In response to the historical domination of patriarchy of those overlapping and mutually constituting spaces of education, performance, and sociality that I call “jazz ecologies," a multitude of voices demanding reform continues to grow. Multiple movements animated by the relational logic of Black Feminism have been initiated to better represent and create opportunities for women, non-binary, and queer people in jazz. This short piece outlines some recent work being done by three such groups creating feminist-informed interventions: the Berklee Center for Jazz and Gender Justice (JGJ), the Women in Jazz Organization (WIJO), and This Is A Movement (TIAM). In various ways these organizations offer support through material, educational, and performance opportunities rooted in identity-based values that specifically serve persons and communities with underrepresented subject positions. Historical context and insights from recent interviews with leadership from these organizations offers a window into the values, actions, and outcomes of ongoing feminist movements in jazz ecologies.

State of the Field: Jazz and Gender

2025-11-03T04:29:04+00:00