Update From Jazz Congress 2025
It’s been a minute since I have posted. I’m prioritizing the book I hope to finish during my sabbatical. But I want to share news from this year’s Jazz Congress, in particular the panel “Navigating Male-Dominated Spaces,” with Terri Lyne Carrington, Akua Dixon, Endea Owens, Helen Sung, and moderated by Karen Kennedy. Below are some of the experiences and thoughts the panel shared that will be familiar to many. If you are a man, you have experienced and witnessed this from your side of the world. This is not about shame. It is about understanding the problem and deciding to be on the team that cares about the music. I continue to believe this is about knowledge, not good vs. evil. And so, I continue to say the things out loud.
1. Men compliment women’s playing but do not invite them on gigs. Many men seem to feel like they have done enough if they compliment a women’s playing. Action is needed: invite them into your bands and playing spaces. The exception is that men invite women who are more well-known than them onto gigs but not women in their own scene or women who are developing. One reason I started this blog was that I realized here in Maine I would never be invited by a good chunk of the scene while the next wave of white male jazz program graduates folded into the scene each year. These were saxophonists and other horn players who would compliment my playing but would get the gigs. Women are supposed to somehow magically get incredibly good before they will be invited into bands. As Terri Lyne Carrington says, “You have to hire people before they are ready and help get them there” as is done with men. Because:
2. A diverse art and community is a robust art and community. Carrington goes on, "If you love the music, you will want it to survive.” But here, I must ask: do white men care about the music? A white lineage of jazz (created especially through college programs) brought European values like white supremacy, patriarchy (including transphobia), and individualism into jazz. This individualism is not about offering a unique voice (and accepting others’ unique voices) but about competition against others as opposed to understanding oneself as part of a community. To prove who is best, a “universal” standard is needed. The idea of a “universal” standard (codified by white men) is quite the opposite of one’s individual voice. Stanley Turrentine would not make it into UNT’s One O’Clock lab band—he’d be asked to lose that vibrato! Caring about the music would mean moving from obsession with our lonely selves, white people, and learning the values of community and gratitude toward those who have inspired us. Then we can trust and even love our individual quirky self. And we can hear in others their individual voice without placing them on the Maynard Ferguson/Michael Brecker scale that still, subtly or explicitly, pervades so many college jazz programs and camps.
3. Insecurity. Which brings me to the fundamental insecurity of this view of individual competition. Thank you, Endea Owens, for articulating what I have experienced from some men for decades now: She described operating daily with people around her who seem to be actively trying to make her quit. Owens, articulating the vibe: “Let me convince you that you don’t belong here.” I can’t count the number of times throughout the decades that white men said things to me that were essentially trying to get me to quit playing. Can of worms that I will address in a future post: In my discussions with white and Asian women in jazz, we have generally experienced sexism from white men and support from Black men. I would really love if any white men reading this would spend some time considering why this might be the case. Because…
4. “It is my job to share what is important to me. It is not my job to educate you.” Thank you, Karen Kennedy.
And here I add this (not attributed to the women on the panel):
5. What are your dues to the music? I’m thinking here especially of white men and women who have learned from a Black tradition and often, individual mentorship from Black musicians. I’ve written about this before and will again, but let it suffice to say here: it is to care about the music. Which is another way of saying, caring about this tradition that has offered so much and to practice the values of community, honesty, and humanity. It’s not about just saying things. Do things.
https://jazzcongress.org/schedule
