Breaking into the boy’s club: the creative minds of women in jazz

Abstract

As a music performance major, I am required to do a final senior recital as a culminating performance of my studies at SUNY New Paltz. Throughout my four years here, I have always been fascinated by the relationship between gender and music in terms of instrument choice, performance opportunities, confidence levels, among other factors. Since I began studying jazz four years ago, I have noticed that for the most part jazz vocalists are female and jazz instrumentalists are male, which seems to remain the case outside of the world of academia. Why is this? My hypothesis is that it is a systemic issue, one that was ingrained into the genre from its conception back in the late 19th century. This curiosity of mine resulted in the decision to perform songs in my recital that involve a woman in the composition, whether that be lyrics or music, or both. I plan to research and discuss these composers, as well as any themes that arise along the way.