Gender in Jazz
Siobhan McAndrew, University of Bristol and Paul Widdop, Leeds Beckett University
Whether jazz is relatively closed to women — serving as a genre and space primarily for men, with exceptions for vocalists — has been widely-discussed in both the jazz and scholarly communities in recent years. Women, The Legends & Their Fight in 2019. Dr Sarah Raine at Edinburgh Napier University has conducted analysis of Cheltenham Jazz Festival lineups from 1996 to 2019, and interviewed leading female performers in depth. The jazz pianist and academic Monika Herzig is currently editing an important major collection, Jazz and Gender, due for publication with Routledge in 2022.
More broadly, jazz has proven of great interest in the social sciences because it generates rich data on collaborations via discographies. It has therefore attracted computer scientists and social scientists alike keen to see how collaboration works, with spectacular studies by sociologist Damon Phillips, network scientist Balazs Vedres, and complexity scientist Leon Danon.
We have long-running interests in networks and music, and collected network data on jazz some years ago for an AHRC-funded project. In the light of renewed interest in differential representation in the cultural world, we used this dataset to turn to the question of gender in jazz, resulting in a paper published earlier this week in the European Journal of Cultural Studies.
We began by wondering why we came across the idea so often that under-representation of women must be down to innate differences. It can be challenging to think of differences in human achievement as due to anything other than ability plus effort. The idea of giftedness, including musical giftedness, feels intuitively true to many. Such a mindset assumes that women could make it in jazz if they truly wanted to — and that if they are not as numerous, it is because they aren’t as musically-proficient; or simply prefer other forms of music and the environment and lifestyle around those other forms.
Jazz and masculinity
We knew from the network science literature that connections matter for creativity — and accordingly that differences which have nothing to do with musical ability, but which do affect connectedness, might hamper particular groups. We were also informed by the thoughtful discussion of masculinity in jazz provided by George McKay in his prize-winning Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain (2005). He provides a careful history of female-led initiatives to change the culture of jazz in the 1970s and 1980s, alongside a deconstruction of how a particular version of masculinity in jazz excludes most women and many men.
There are many anecdotal accounts of female musicians experiencing unacceptable behaviour, and of people expressing assumptions that jazz has to be a certain way — that women tend to play the ‘wrong’ instruments, or don’t perform the role of tortured masculine genius convincingly. Indeed, on instrument choice, the jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby (1932–1986) suggested she experienced a ‘triple burden’ as a harpist, as female, and as African American.
On the masculinity of ‘tortured genius’, McKay expands thus:
‘British jazz’s suburban enthusiasts have also written narcotic, alcoholic, sexual excess vicariously into jazz legend, these figure predominantly as male… Some of Britain’s best modern jazz musicians would follow, fall to, the heroin addiction model of jazz inspiration: the saxophonist Tubby Hayes (died in 1973, aged thirty-eight years), the drummer Phil Seamen (died in 1972, aged forty-six). Seamen produced an extraordinary autobiographical statement of his early jazz career on side 1 of the record Phil Seamen Story, which consists of short bursts of solo drumming interspersed with his voiced memories, recorded in the studio…. The slurred delivery, the semi-rambling structure, the inconsequentiality of most of the monologue, in combination with Seamen’s percussive breaks, even the record’s posthumous release, present a kind of masculine performance… what was the hoped-for market for such a record? Who wanted to hear the ghoulish stripping away, the sad sound of a drummer without a band, who wanted to turn the flaunted failure of an extreme jazz masculinity into cultural counter-triumph or vicarious male fantasy?’
McKay argues that this archetype is often oppressive and uncomfortable, particularly to female musicians, even though the music itself appeals. He also interviewed musician Steve Beresford, who noted:
‘You might think all of these [opportunities for dialogue via jazz improvisation] would or could appeal to women looking for creative opportunities for music-making. But, in proportion, they are not there. On the other hand, go into the classical scene — which is frankly more hierarchical, more authoritarian altogether — and there are, comparatively speaking, many more women musicians’.
Guitarist and composer Deirdre Cartwright also described how women opted away from jazz in earlier decades:
‘In classical music there may be prejudice and discrimination against, for instance, women, but at the same time you know where you can go — there are grades, exams, orchestras, structures or lines that you can follow to get some sort of career or recognition. For young women wanting to start out in jazz that simply was not the case — except for Ivy [Benson]… She offered a professional band, with high standards’.
Interviews and memoirs provide further indicative detail of the culture around jazz in earlier decades. The writer Colin Harper has researched the life of banjoist Pete Deuchar, heir to a brewing dynasty, for Record Collector:
‘Toni Goffe on bass… recalls Pete’s personality as “Way over the top… We were drinking a lot, every night, and usually getting drunk — the norm in those days. When he first came on the scene we realised we’d have to up our drinking capacity to keep up! I don’t think I liked him at first, but as soon as we started playing I realised he was OK’.
Further:
‘During ’66, Pete was looking to form a new band. Guitarist/banjoist Mike Deighan, a songwriter for The Four Pennies and part of the Fritz, Mike & Mo trio (two 1965 singles), answered the ad and turned up at London’s Ken Colyer club on a Sunday afternoon: “There were guys there who were absolutely superb musicians,” Deighan recalls. “Anyway, it got to seven o’clock and Pete being Pete says, ‘Right, let’s go to The Porcupine for a pint.’ We stayed there, chewing the fat, and about nine o’clock I went for a piss — and Pete came in the bogs and says, ‘You’ve got the job.’ And I say, ‘Hang on Pete, there’s guys there can play the arse off me.’ He says, ‘Yeah, I know, but you’re the only one who got his round in’”.’
In other words, ‘fit’ mattered. And music can become stereotyped by the culture around it. Composer and writer Kurt Ellenberger, with reference to the US, suggested in 2012 that jazz culture:
‘stubbornly adheres to a stodgy conservatism… hopelessly mired in romantic notions of the Golden Age (circa 1950–1960)… jazz musicians continue to foster the attitudes, behaviors, and sometimes even the hopelessly worn-out hipster lingo from that bygone era… Jazz and its affectations certainly aren’t “cool” anymore, and haven’t been for decades; these signifiers no longer identify the user as a slick, modern, and rebellious hipster’.
What our analysis found
Our starting point was that genres and audiences might partly result from sorting — and that it was plausible that current audiences have specific preferences for a genre typed as masculine. But such matching between cultural output and music lovers implies that particular performers, producers, audience members are sorted out, and that particular sounds might never come to exist. In other words, the jazz world selects for particular types of musician and fan, potentially too narrowly.
To probe further, we went to a source that had been compiled by an expert in the field — the jazz trumpeter and great jazz researcher and writer John Chilton (1932–2016). While many studies depend on either discographical data or focused sets of interviews, he tracked the careers of those performers seriously-involved in British jazz, including those who did not ultimately make recordings. We coded up the career histories he had summarised, capturing instrument choice and the collaborations named in his Who’s Who of British Jazz (2003).
While the source does not cover the post-2000 period well, it does allow us to investigate the careers of 983 musicians from the earliest years of jazz in Britain, and to match them against the recordings listed in the Tom Lord database. This combination allows us to see whether female musicians were shut out from musical collaborations, and from recording success. We also examined jazz attendances by gender, using the government-sponsored Taking Part survey of cultural participation, from 2005 to 2017.
For attendances, we saw that more men than women report attending jazz concerts — and that the gender gap is relatively larger for jazz than for rock. By comparison, women are more likely to attend classical concerts than men. Female performers accordingly face primarily-male audiences, and rely on them to buy recordings too.
We then looked at the network of collaborations among our set of 983 musicians. A first assessment indicated that men tended to play with men, and women also tended to play with men. This pattern of gender homophily for men and gender heterophily for women can be found in other creative and professional fields, and tends to indicate that it is important to connect with those of higher status in a field. Once we took account of career spans and a range of musicians’ characteristics, then female-female dyads are more likely to feature a tie. This may reflect activism on the part of female musicians to take control of their musical careers and promote female-led music. It also appears that to the extent musicians are less versatile in terms of the numbers of instruments they play, and more likely to be vocalists, ties are less likely. Instrumental specialisation and versatility may therefore be one site for intervention.
From Chilton’s data, we see that as the armed forces declined as a training ground for musicians, and conservatoires and music departments expanded, it became easier for women to get an entry-point. In other words, institutional change and large-scale social change matters. For the first generations of jazz musicians, compulsory secondary education ended at 14. Over the decades, an increasing proportion has attended university or music college, with Goldsmiths and Leeds College of Music popular choices.
Finally, we looked at differences in terms of number of recordings, taking account of period of birth and career characteristics besides connectedness to other musicians. We found that the female musicians in our dataset have recorded significantly less, even when controlling for some of the usual reasons offered for the female penalty — being a vocalist, or beginning careers after the golden age.
This triple focus on audiences, networks and recordings gives us a fresh perspective on gender inequalities. The gender gaps on the audience side suggest potential for musical conservatism in that audiences tend to be older, and some may actively prefer masculinity in music.
For recordings, the gender gaps are suggestive of shorter and more constrained careers, rather than evidencing that women primarily play ‘the wrong instruments’ or were born at the wrong time. While some women have achieved remarkable recording success, on average women record less.
Performing careers are also affected by family life. Careers in music performance are challenging for because of the time spent travelling and working evenings, which is harder if responsible for a child or relative needing care. Herzig has written memorably of performing ‘the night before and the night after my first daughter was born’ — but that eventually the joint challenge of needing childcare cover , together with wanting to enjoy time with her daughters when they were small, meant she diversified her career into academia.
That individuals make reasonable choices to reduce time on the road doesn’t mean that there is then no problem for jazz or musical life more broadly. Some women choose otherwise and then lack the role models they need, as do the very young. Developing a broader talent pool, and drawing young musicians into jazz, is one solution, so that a larger number of women can make it through: something the National Youth Jazz Orchestra is actively working to do.
Promoters and festival programmers also have to pay attention to diversity, with the Keychange initiative very welcome in this regard, one which is already affecting jazz festival programming.
Funders and cultural policy-makers also have to work out how to harness the reservoir of talented women who have taken career breaks and generate routes back. Indeed, many of the performers in our dataset work well beyond conventional retirement ages: careers are long. This is partly a question of what is fair to good performers whose careers otherwise end prematurely, and also a question of making different styles and performances possible which otherwise wouldn’t exist.
Equally, commercial reality is a binding constraint for those booking acts or deciding to sign artists. This has undoubtedly driven preferential selection of musicians to recording opportunities and live performances. Which turns our attention to audiences: the body of performers is changing, and for it to thrive as a living genre rather than a sonic museum, audiences have to adapt.
Audience preferences have changed jazz in the past, and the pre-pandemic jazz scene in London in particular was benefiting from new audiences open to the work of emerging musicians. As we return to live performances, those of us with a life-long commitment to a particular genre and years ahead on the scene could perhaps think about whether we are stereotyping what a promising talent looks like, and actively seek out acts and recordings — and indeed genres — that we might instinctively see as not for us.
McAndrew. S, Widdop. P. ‘The man that got away’: Gender inequalities in the consumption and production of jazz. European Journal of Cultural Studies. 2021; 24/3: 690–716. doi:10.1177/13675494211006091
