Female jazz musicians to discuss gender, industry

Talk to local jazz pianist Monika Herzig about America’s waning interest in jazz and her voice will grow in volume and passion. 

“We’re losing jazz out of our listening environments,” she said. “These other styles have taken over, but we need to find ways to keep it in our environment. We need to keep fighting for such an important part of our heritage.”

Herzig will team up with other female jazz artists for “Women in Jazz” at 3 p.m. Sunday at the John Waldron Arts Center. The event will honor Women’s History Month and close the 2009 ArtsWeek celebrations. It will feature three generations of female jazz musicians, including Bloomington High School North students Thea Bransby and Mailyn Fidler.

“Women in Jazz” will begin with a 45-minute panel discussion during which each artist will tell her unique story as a female jazz musician. Afterward, the women will perform a 90-minute concert. The event is free.

“It’s a special bonding thing for us to pull together and do this,” Herzig said. “I’m usually the only female when I go out. As a player, I’m usually the last one who gets a call because the guys usually like to work together. So you have to take your own initiative and start your own projects. Music-making for us is different. It’s a little more special and emotional.”

Not all women feel left out of the jazz scene. “Women in Jazz” bassist Jennifer Kirk said women bass players and other female musicians are everywhere, but they tend to stay hidden.

“I have never, ever felt any kind of discrimination being a woman,” said Kirk, who has been playing jazz since the 1980s. “If you could pick up an instrument and play it, it didn’t matter who or what you were. As long as you could cover the gig and cover the book, you’re hired.”

But it hasn’t always been that way.

“Historically, women were never a large group in jazz,” said “Women in Jazz” vocalist Janiece Jaffe. “Classical music has seen plenty of women, but jazz has always been completely littered by men.”

Because playing jazz music meant hanging around men at bars and clubs late at night, participating was socially unacceptable for women, Jaffe said. 

“Society has changed,” Herzig said. “More and more women are being involved, and you don’t get weird looks anymore playing late at night at a bar. It’s accepted now.”

Aside from acceptance as musicians in a male-dominated industry, “Women in Jazz” has another looming problem. According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s 2007 Consumer Profile, jazz music accounted for only 2.6 percent of all music sold that year.

This figure scares Herzig. 

“Jazz is losing its commercial value,” she said. “It’s the one musical style that was completely created in America, so we should be proud of that. Learn about jazz. We should all be conscious of it because it’s the root of most popular music today.”

Kirk said she believes people should support local musicians, no matter the genre.
 
“This will be a special night,” she said. “Most of the music you will hear is written and arranged by women. It betters all of us, the whole community, when people take an hour and a half out of their day and sit and enjoy something like this.”