When most people think of jazz greats, few faces of women and non
binary musicians likely come to mind. But a new program is working
to change that Jeffrey Brown takes a look at a pipeline being developed
to pump talent into clubs and on two stages across the country and
the world. It's part of our arts and culture series canvas.
Recent jazz performance at the Kennedy Center's millennium stage
in Washington, D C. 28 year old pianist Anastasia
Petrova says she came to love jazz as a girl in Kazakhstan when she
heard a teacher play a ballad by Bill Evans. I loved it From the
first seconds, I decided for myself. I want to have a piece of that
freedom.
He used the word freedom you want. What? What does that mean? Freedom
under his fingers. He didn't have any sheet music in front of him.
He was just playing out of his head, and I couldn't believe that
this is possible.
30 year old Ivana question. Gonzales grew up listening to music with
her father in the Dominican Republic.
Then one day came across a drum set in church, so the drums and no
one could play it. So I was like I can do it.
So you know, they just pay me like two classes and learned the first
real, um and the first field and that's it, And I was just like the
reunion and I was like
years later for these early to mid career professionals. Love is
still there. But while the road to making a life in jazz is hard
for anyone, some face lingering cultural and other barriers
I approached stage and
male musician immediately asked me. Are you going to dance today
or sing?
So that that immediately diminished my skills as a pianist, and if
I don't have someone introducing me to the band to the House band,
there is no way I could join a gym session. 31 year old Swedish born
guitarist Loki Reese Berg identifies as a trans man.
You get the feeling or sometimes people say it
out loud like can you really can? You're like the question you and
can you really play and in a way, you wouldn't question someone who
sits sister gender male.
Ah!
And that's sort of put put it in
in my head. That's can I really and like, that's the worst thing
I think you should have in your mind when you go up to play a concert
or a jam session. Musicians are now part of a new program focused
on women and non binary jazz artist started by veteran drummer Terri
Lyne Carrington.
Your average musician or high, actually really like to say it is
your marginal male musician will be supported and have work opportunities
more than a woman that actually excels.
Uh, because of
Of the culture and all of the
Stereotypes that she has to face before she even plays. You know.
Carrington, who was performing with her band Social Science in one
of the Kennedy Center's main theaters That night, is a three time
Grammy winning drummer, composer and producer who's played and worked
with legends including Woody Shaw, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock and
a long list of others. She comes from a musical family. Her father,
Matt Carrington, a saxophone player in Boston.
And introduced his young daughter to the art form.
And many of its leading practitioners. She played her first professional
gig at age 10 and hasn't stopped. She's also a noted educator teaching
at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where we met recently,
she says she used to advise young women to just put their heads down
and push past the barriers but no more because
Everybody doesn't have the same personality. Everybody isn't having
the same confidence. Everybody doesn't have the same support. Everybody
doesn't have the same access.
That I had.
At Berkeley, Carrington hedge, the Institute of Jazz and Gender justice
and has now created the next Jazz Legacy program.
What I tried to do is think about what
Helped me to develop as a musician.
Ah, what was the most important things?
And it was really
The musicians that gave me a shot even before I was ready.
And I think that, uh
Those opportunities. More foreign few
Between that for women than they are for men.
Mind Statistic in a 2019 NPR jazz critics list of top 50 albums Almost
60% had no women at all in the line up of instrumentalists. A similar
proportion of all jazz albums had no women musicians at all. We know
there are some fantastic female vocalists who become very famous
and very successful in jazz.
But there is a particular problem with instrumentalists and improvises
who, you know, that's the backbone of that community. Next jazz legacy
was co launched by the advocacy group New Music USA, Headed by Vanessa
Reed. It's about ensuring that women and non binary instrumentalists
can see that they have role models that they can follow.
But also it's about building alliances with men. Because if we don't
work with the people who currently have the most power in jazz, then
we're never going to affect change. The emphasis here is on apprenticeships,
man leaders offering year long hands on work, and Mentorships
found myself holding it like like this, signifying the freedom in
which participants seven in the first cohort are matched with more
experienced musicians.
Here. Qalea. VanDerveer worked with Jen Hsu recently in a New York
City park. You're going to do your own thing as well.
They also received guidance on the business end of the jazz industry
and a $10,000 stipend.
Some top talent has signed on to help even a question. Gonzalez is
now working with Esperanza Spalding, one woman who has broken through
to stardom in recent years.
And she'll soon work with sax player Wayne Shorter, a long established
giant in the field. I mean, this is like, kind of a dream for me.
Yeah, both. And what? What is it? You hope to get from them for me?
It's like to see how authentic away they are. And I actually want
to be like that. You know the like. Don't be afraid. Who of my own
ideas?
And like, try to put it there. And if people have said that it's
fine, if not, it's fine, too. So I think both in a way they have
been doing that, in their own generation world of jazz is changing,
Terri Lyne Carrington says. Just not fast enough. This program she
hopes will help individuals but also impact the sound of jazz itself.
I never looked at
Well.
I'm a woman. What does that mean? In this music? What does that sound
like? Does it have a sound?
I never looked at that because I was always trying to imitate men
playing the music because that's all we ever heard
to see that happen because there's not enough of us yet that are
that people are trying to imitate. Stay tuned, then for that next
Jazz to who are the PBS news Hour? I'm Jeffrey Brown at the Berklee
College of Music in Boston.