Overview

Nadine Jansen, a flugelhornist and pianist, remembers a night in the 1940s when a man came out of the audience as she was playing both instruments. ""I hate to see a woman do that,"" he explained as he hit the end of her horn, nearly chipping her tooth. Half a century later, a big band named Diva made its debut in New York on March 30, 1993, with Melissa Slocum on bass, Sue Terry on alto sax, Lolly Bienenfeld on trombone, Sherrie Maricle on drums, and a host of other first rate instrumentalists. The band made such a good impression that it was immediately booked to play at Carnegie Hall the following year. For those who had yet to notice, Diva signaled the emergence of women musicians as a significant force in jazz. Madame Jazz is a fascinating invitation to the inside world of women in jazz. Ranging primarily from the late 1970s to today's vanguard of performance jazz in New York City and on the West Coast, it chronicles a crucial time of transition as women make the leap from novelty acts regarded as second class citizens to sought-out professionals admired and hired for their consummate musicianship. Author Leslie Gourse surveys the scene in the jazz clubs, the concert halls, the festivals, and the recording studios from the musicians' point of view. She finds exciting progress on all fronts, but also lingering discrimination. The growing success of women instrumentalists has been a long time in coming, she writes. Long after women became accepted as writers and, to a lesser extent, as visual artists, women in music--classical, pop, or jazz--faced the nearly insuperable barrier of chauvinism and the still insidious force of tradition and habit that keeps most men performing with the musicians they have always worked with, other men. Gourse provides dozens of captivating no-holds-barred interviews with both rising stars and seasoned veterans. Here are up-and-coming pianists Renee Rosnes and Rachel Z., trumpeter Rebecca Coupe Frank, saxophonist Virginia Mayhew, bassist Tracy Wormworth, and drummer Terri Lynne Carrington, and enduring legends Dorothy Donegan, Marian McParland and Shirley Horne. Here, as well, are conversations with three pioneering business women: agent and producer Helen Keane, manager Linda Goldstein, and festival and concert producer Cobi Narita. All of the women speak insightfully about their inspiration and their commitment to pursuing the music they love. They are also frank about the realities of life on the road, and the extra dues women musicians pay in a tough and competitive field where everybody pays dues. A separate chapter offers a closer look at women musicians and the continual stress confronting those who would combine love, marriage, and/or motherhood with a life in music. Madame Jazz is about the history that women jazz instrumentalists are making now, as well as an inspiring preview of the even brighter days ahead. It concludes with Frankie Nemko's lively evaluation of the West Coast jazz scene, and appends the most comprehensive list ever assembled of women currently playing instruments professionally.

Full Product Details

9780195106473

Table of Contents

Reviews

[Gourse] knows her topic well....Lively and absorbing. --Jazz Notes<br> A major contribution. --W. Royal Stokes, author of The Jazz Scene<br> If you know a talented young lady who is seriously dedicated to her art, run--don't walk--to your nearest bookstore and get her this book right away. --Jazz Educators Journal<br>

<br> [Gourse] knows her topic well....Lively and absorbing. --Jazz Notes<p><br> A major contribution. --W. Royal Stokes, author of The Jazz Scene<p><br> If you know a talented young lady who is seriously dedicated to her art, run--don't walk--to your nearest bookstore and get her this book right away. --Jazz Educators Journal<p><br>

This important work is a report on the position of women in jazz from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, an exciting and crucial time of transition. Gourse is an American jazz author with an accessible journalistic style, an eye for detail and a good ear for an anecdote. * Mike Bradley, The Times * Another handsome hard-back volume from OUP who publish some exceptional jazz titles. * Beat Scene, No. 23 *

A major disappointment from a well-known authority on jazz.Gourse (Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan, 1993, etc.) starts with a noble premise: that women are becoming increasingly visible in contemporary jazz, despite lingering prejudice against them as performers, particularly as instrumentalists. However, this hodge-podge, which appears to be assembled from old interviews, barely does justice to the many fine female performers whom Gourse hopes to celebrate. The book is divided into three sections. In the first part, Gourse discusses the general status of women in jazz today, jumping from player to player and anecdote to anecdote, making for at best a jumbled narrative. In part two, she profiles specific players; many of these chapters read like magazine profiles or liner notes, some several years old, with updates tacked on like Post-it notes. The final section is a catalog of women performers, some profiled in the book, some not, serving as a kind of mini-dictionary of jazz players. Despite the book's pro-female stance, Gourse manages to repeat several old myths from the male-dominated jazz press, including such whoppers as few women play jazz guitar because it takes such strength to play (based on two false assumptions: that women lack strength and that it takes enormous effort to play a modern, amplified guitar). And although Gourse is celebrating women as musicians who can compete head-to-head with men, she insists on describing each performer's physical attractions, as if this were a Miss Jazz America contest ( Men in the audience were particularly charmed by the slender, attractive multi-instrumentalist who could also sing is her description of baritone saxophonist Carol Sudhalter; stride pianist Judy Carmichael is described as a slender woman with cascades of blonde ringlets and a peaches-and-cream complexion ; even elder stateswoman Marian McPartland is complimented on her trim figure ). Gourse fails the very women to whom she is attempting to pay tribute. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Leslie Gourse is a freelance writer whose books on jazz includeSassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan, Unforgettable: The Life and Mystique of Nat King Cole, and Louis's Children, an acclaimed history of jazz singing. In 1991, she received an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for a series of articles on women instrumentalists.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available