The Jazz Patriarchy At my school, I am one of two women in the jazz program. In high school, I went to Birch Creek: one of the finest summer jazz academies in the country. In attendance, there were four girls and forty-eight boys. Even though I was outnumbered at the camp, I returned there three consecutive years, once earning their most-improved student award. In total, I attended twelve summer music camps between seventh grade and my enrollment at Northern Illinois University. Unfortunately, the boys always greatly outnumbered the girls. The jazz music scene in particular is male-dominated, and women need to fight for their place on stage. As a woman in jazz, I have, among others, been viewed as an outsider, a lesser musician, and an object. Women in jazz should feel welcome in this industry without facing discrimination. Women have been the "pretty faces" of the band since they started playing music. Women were …show more content…
Women in the 40's wore fitted dresses with low-cut tops, and not much has changed since then. Band-fronting women still wear tight, low-cut, and shorter outfits while men wear suits, button-down shirts, or even jeans with beanies in more relaxed venues. Like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday, women in jazz are still judged by their beauty as well as their musicianship. Female beauty standards in music can become discriminatory via sponsorship. For example, saxophonist Geof Bradfield, my professor at Northern Illinois University, has sponsorships with D'Addario Woodwinds and P.Mauriat, which are both music and saxophone related sponsorships. Saxophonist Candy Dulfer was at one time sponsored by Revlon, which does not relate to her career. Mindi Abair, another saxophonist, was once sponsored by Maybelline, a makeup company. All of these people are respected saxophonists; however, they seem to be supported for very different reasons. In this case, a woman's beauty seems to trump her hard work and
The Jazz Age was a period of radical behavior and care free living. This new music structure started the crazy decade that would change American life. “In the US during the 1920s, jazz was far more than a new musical style or genre”. A Focus on culture, fashion, and mostly freedom became huge. “The Jazz Age became a touchstone for a wide range of social and cultural issues.”1 Also the freedom during the period allowed for many different ethnicities, including African Americans, to gain freedom within society. This new music
I.Introduction: Good afternoon everyone, my name is Giselle Levario. I am a freshman here at NMSU with a love for music and today I will be informing you all about one of my favorite music genres, Jazz and it’s history. First, I will talk why Jazz was important to society during the Great Depression. Second, I will discuss the various techniques and rhythms used in a Jazz ensemble and finally, I will discuss why Jazz music is still influential to today’s society and music culture.
Women’s music came from radical, grassroots origins in the 1970s thanks to contributions by brave women, mostly lesbians (Mosbacher, 2002). These women used non-violent, peaceful force to forge their own way into the music industry. It was a peaceful yet political revolution of togetherness and liberation. It brought together women of different backgrounds who produced easy-listening, mellow harmonies played with lyrics filled with tumultuous
Jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro Life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul—the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile. Yet the Philadelphia clubwoman… turns up her nose at jazz and all its manifestations—likewise almost anything else distinctly racial…She wants the artist to flatter her, to make the white world believe that all Negroes are as smug as near white in smug as she wants to be. But, to my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist …to change through the hidden force of his art that old whispering “I want to be white,” hidden in the aspirations of his people, to “Why should I want to be white? I am Negro—and beautiful.”
Jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul-the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile. Yet the Philadelphia club woman , turns up her nose at jazz and all its manifetations-likewise almost anything else distinctly racial... She wants the artist to flatter her, to make the white world believe that all Negroes are as smug and as near white in soul as she wants to be. But, to my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, to change through the force of his art that old whispering "I want to be white, hidden in the aspirations of his people, to "Why should I want to he white? I am Negro-and beautiful"
There are many important women who significantly contributed to Jazz and left a legacy of women artists. In the early years of Jazz, it was considered a male professional and women who tried to be part of Jazz faced obstacles. This was from male musicians, critics, record producers, club-owners, concerts and also racism. Despite the obstacles, women forced their way to be part of Jazz and pushed for equality and visibility (“Gender Discrimination, 2014).
Not all whom listened to the music, will agree. The statement whereas jazz was a “moral disaster” to young girls is inaccurate because teenagers will choose to do whatever they want if it is morally wrong as a result of growing up and experiencing life. Regardless of what kind of music is playing, young teens will go as they please. As for the origins issue, people need to stop believing everything they hear. That issue was developed by a music critic of the New York Herald Tribune. How can everyone be so sure what that critic is saying is entirely true? III. Conclusion d. Both arguments of this catastrophic impact that jazz has had on all American people are very strong. Unfortunately, one side being stronger than the other. Opponents that opposed this argument had some valid points. Their strongest being- a moral disaster on young women. When they say young girls and guys have been spiraling out of their bodie’s sexual or emotional control, they are correct. The love of the genre might be pulling all types of different people together, that including of boys and girls. A girl and a boy find that they both have the same interest in jazz music, so they might get to know each other and so on. But, is that argument really an entire convincing explanation as to jazz being an annoyance or threat to the American people? This time period being the Great Depression, people struggle
On November 17th, 2016, I attended a jazz concert and had quite a time. The experience was captivating, and gave me a warm feeling inside. There were three different bands that play in the hour slot, and all of them sounded magnificent, but “The Santé Fe Jazz Combo” and “Santa Fe Big Band” stood out the most. The only thing these two bands have in common is that some of the musicians play in both bands. Otherwise, these jazz fanatics are polar opposites.
Women have decided to consume hip hop regardless of the sexism and machismo of their rap artist spouses. Historically, black women who have sex with other women haven’t been recognized in the Black community. Also, the expectations are the same in hip hop culture because men reject lesbians. An example is the murder in 2003 of Sakia Gunn after she declared her lesbian identity to a group of males. We all know that in hip hop culture men predominate and precisely masculine. Women can achieve a higher professional success than men regarding no matter their sexual orientation. In other hand, women represent different controlling images like the whore, the mammy and temptress. Homophobia in hip hop is translated into forms of oppression, discrimination and violence for gays, lesbians and transgender. “Black women rappers interpret and articulate the fears, pleasures, and promises of young black women whose voices have been relegated to the margins of public discourse.” Their voices are in constant dialogue with the public and men rappers about sexual promiscuity, emotional commitment, infidelity, the drug trade, racial politics and black cultural history. If we pay close attention to female rappers, we will notice that they address questions of sexual power, economic opportunities and the pain of racism and sexism. Women rappers has been promoted as sexually progressive, antisexist voices because of “an understanding of male rappers as uniformly sexist.” Discussions of women
1. My redefinition of Hip hop feminism differs from the “normal” definition of feminism, to me hip hop feminism is a way of living and thinking. Hip hop feminism is connected to the Liberation Movement although this movement focused on advancing women rights than civil rights I still believe it played a part with the Hip Hop feminism movement which focused on the rights for young black women in the hip hop industry. I believe this because both movements give women a new definition of what it is like to be a women and both fight for the women cause although they may not hit the exact issues they promote change. Hip hop feminism should fight for the rights of women in hip hop who don’t receive respect due to their sexuality and gender. Women’s perspective in hip hop should be changed and embraced as a powerful persona rather than sexual perspectives. In order to make my definition of hip hop feminism happen in the industry major change must be presented. First, we must create respect towards hip hop women and shut down the suppression of female power. The way in which this would happen is to stop the secularization of women in this industry and not support the hypermasculan culture hip hop is. Although I understand that not all sexualization will be abolished completely from hip hop due to it being part of the culture . However I feel if women were to maybe not givein to the
Just listening to a track and hearing the word bitch continuously used, as in Jay Z’s “99 Problems”, on the surface structure, it
Do you see any of us running any record companies, booking agencies, radio stations, music magazines?” (quoted in Laver, 2015) A lot of money was to to be made in the jazz industry and white musicians earned a lot of commission through the exploitation of black jazz musicians. For many black musicians the only way to “make it” in the industry was to be employed by white musicians who would go on take advantage of their talent, leading to
In this vignette, the narrator compares two bands that were famous during their time. Both Gary and his friend want to look like the Beatles but they want to play The Rolling Stone’s songs. I feel that Gary should not try to be someone he is not, just to get girls. All famous musicians play their instrument because they love it, not because they want to get girls.
Throughout this course we discussed the Jazz Age, cultural appropriation, racial and gender differences, and African Americans and Parisians during the interwar years. We looked at many African American performers and performances that had a huge impact on France’s cultural identity. After learning about all of this in class, I wanted to take my research further. I decided to research female foreign performers who have had a major influence on the Jazz Age in Paris. I decided to focus specifically on three foreign females, and they are: singer and dancer Josephine Baker, dancer Molly Spotted Elk, and dancer Ada “Bricktop” Smith. Each of these female performers had a large impact on taking the Jazz Age in Paris to another level.
Jazz became one of the main musical styles appearing in commercials, TV shows and all kinds of stage performances. Because the role of jazz in Japan is significant, in the year of 2004, Japan film producers presents a film about a group of high school girls learning Jazz. This is the film “ Swing Girls”. The film itself is simple but calls for deeper thoughts; a group of high school girls accidently food poisoned the school jazz bands. In order to right their wrongs, these girls with one boy have to learn jazz from zero knowledge until they are able to present a show for the school. Disregard the film exaggerating the girls’ talent or learning