[Dixielandjazz] Women in Jazz - was Singers

[Steve Barbone]

>From our experience, most any audience appreciates women in jazz, be they
singers or instrumentalists.

We have a female trombonist in our trombone rotation since Glenn Dodson
passed away. The audiences adore her. She doesn't sing, but she plays the
hell out of the trombone. She is a big band trombonist, not much experience
in Dixieland, but has great ears and reads treble clef lead sheets. Big
sound, lots of energy. By year end, she'll be a Dixieland player.

Folks don't normally see women in small jazz bands and so they listen
intently to her and always question her, on break, about how she got hooked
up with a bunch of old men. (she's about 35) No question that she adds to
the band persona among the audiences. That's one reason Dizzy Gillespie used
Melba Liston in his big band.

So, the trumpet player and I sing. Not well, but that is not the point. We
know how to sing to the audience. Like there is no better connection than
singing "I Want A Little Girl" to some College Girls, or modifying the lyric
to be PC, to a ten year old. (I want a little girl to dance a lot . . . I'd
give all the beads I've got . . . to a little girl who'd dance around for
me", etc. I've had as many as 20 little girls at a time dancing around at
Street Festivals for beads when I sing it like that.

Our trumpet player sings "Someday You'll Be Sorry" after prefacing it with a
quick sound bit about Louis Armstrong always had an extra woman in the
wings, because he felt his regular woman would eventually treat him badly.
And so he wrote this "Get Even" song for all you women who treat jazz
musicians badly, and there are a lot of you out there. Always gets an "oh
yeah, right", and a big grin from women in the audience.

Those kind of vocals, made relevant to the audience, are superb connectors
and you get undivided attention.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone