Women in Jazz

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It’s a male, male world

By Bob Weinberg

On the other hand, that notion may be somewhat naive and idealistic. Jazz-magazine polls — both readers’ and critics’ — overwhelmingly continue to favor male artists, as do most festival lineups, club bookings, and music-store inventories. Indeed, jazz is still a man’s world — with one notable exception: vocalists.

While male singers from Joe Williams and Eddie Jefferson to Johnny Hartman and Kurt Elling have left considerable imprints upon the jazz world, some female singers need only be mentioned by first name — Ella, Sarah, Carmen, Billie — to evoke sighs of rapture from the initiated.

Besides voice, women in jazz seem to be most recognized when they’re seated at the piano. Player-composers Mary Lou Williams and Marian McPartland are immortalized among the all-male mob (with the exception of Maxine Sullivan, who posed between Luckey Roberts and Jimmy Rushing) gathered around the steps of a New York brownstone in the legendary 1958 “A Great Day in Harlem” photo. Carla Bley and Joanne Brackeen are generally regarded as modern-jazz masters. I would add the likes of Alice Coltrane, Marilyn Crispell, and Jessica Williams to that list, as well.

There’s nothing inherently feminine in instrumental jazz created by women. I don’t spin a disc by Marilyn Crispell to get a woman’s perspective, but rather because when I’m in the mood for emotionally complex and mysterious piano music, it fits the bill perfectly. However, with vocalists, gender is usually obvious. Sure, the emotions expressed may resonate within men and women equally, but listeners are always aware of the messenger and from which side of the man/woman divide that hurt or joy is emanating.

The following are a few of my favorite recordings by women jazz vocalists:

Carmen McRae Carmen Sings Monk (Novus/BMG) — There’s nothing sentimental about Carmen McRae’s delivery. The woman’s tough, brassy demeanor works wonderfully on Monk’s hard-edged tunes, as heard on this definitive 1990 recording. And yet, like Monk, McRae could display a heart-aching vulnerability on, for example, her poignant versions of “Ruby, My Dear” and “Ask Me Now.” Refashioned as “Dear Ruby” and “How I Wish,” both numbers feature typically masterful lyrics by Jon Hendricks. Delivered with streetwise sagacity, McRae’s take on “Blue Monk” — retitled “Monkery’s the Blues” and featuring an Abbey Lincoln lyric — sounds like hard-won pearls of wisdom: “When you’re alone/Life is your own/But the price you pay is dear.” In the end, she concludes, “you got to pay them dues.” And really, would you want to listen to anyone who hadn’t?

Cassandra Wilson New Moon Daughter (Blue Note) — Cassandra Wilson’s discography includes many magnificent moments, but this 1996 release remains a personal favorite. Producer Craig Street provides the perfect palette for Wilson’s alternately ethereal and earthy interpretations of tunes by everyone from U2 to Hank Williams. She delivers just the right balance of hope and yearning on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark.” She gives voice to the inherent eroticism in “Last Train to Clarksville” — and its “coffee-flavored kisses” — an element missing from The Monkees’ version. Her own “Solomon Sang” paints a lovely vision with its lush, Old Testament imagery. Her sumptuous tone and languorous phrasing make everything Wilson sings her own.

Susanne AbbuehlApril (ECM) — Susanne Abbuehl’s vocals hit you like a bracing shot of chilled vodka that goes down cold but ignites a fire in your belly. The Swiss singer’s 2002 ECM debut showcases an audacious talent. Her hauntingly beautiful voice floats ghostlike over moonlit snowscapes of piano, harmonium, melodica, and clarinet, as she sets to music the poetry of e.e. cummings on the delightful “Yes Is a Pleasant Country” and “Since Feeling Is First,” which notes that he “who pays attention to the syntax of things/will never wholly kiss you”). Abbuehl pens her own evocative and abstract words to Carla Bley melodies. And while listeners might shiver a bit listening to her crystalline voice in these stark settings, Abbuehl is never detached from the proceedings, and her longing seems almost palpable. Marvelous mood music, when one is in the mood to brood. Photo by AndreaLoux.