"Paying Tribute to the Women In Jazz" 4/14/2017
Hard-living ’80s jazz guitarist and bandleader Emily Remler, who died at age 32, was once asked how she wanted to be remembered.
“The music is everything, and it has nothing to do with politics or the women’s liberation movement. . . . You have to rise above it all by being good. You get so damn good that they’ll forget about all that garbage.”
Get good is just what female jazz musicians did — and what they have done, in fact, for decades before and after Remler.
That talent will be showcased as Denver’s Dazzle Jazz hosts the Women in Jazz Week concert series Sunday through March 20. Jazz89 KUVO is also presenting a Celebration of Notable Jazz Women each day of the month on its website, kuvo.org.
“I think the main reason the question of women in jazz is still out there is because there aren’t that many women who play it,” said local pianist Carmen Sandim, whose Denver-based all-female group, Jasmine, kicks off the week at Dazzle on Sunday.
“I teach Jazz Styles and Intro to Music at Metro, and I read in one of the textbooks we use that women were discouraged from playing instruments where their face would become distorted when they played, such as woodwinds and horns, for example,” she said.
Sandim, a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil, finds that while she has never experienced problems finding work as a bandleader, she still harbors almost subconscious prejudices about women’s musical capabilities herself.
“When I go to a jazz concert and hear female instrumentalists that I don’t know, there’s this worry that, ‘Oh, I hope they play great.’ “
Pianist Lynne Arriale sees Women in Jazz Week as a chance to “acknowledge the women jazz artists before us who have broken down barriers, made it easier for us to have professional careers. . . . There are now so many brilliant group leaders it’s no longer a rarity to see a group that is led by a female jazz musician.”
Arriale is a lynchpin of the festival. Her trio plays March 19 and 20 at Dazzle.
She’ll also conduct two fan Q&A sessions before those performances; singer Renee Marie will conduct a vocal workshop Tuesday.
“Jazz has always been about one generation mentoring the next,” said Steven Denny, music director at Dazzle Jazz.
It’s through such mentoring that, ironically, a Women in Jazz Week may someday no longer be necessary.
“My wish is that there won’t need to be this ‘community’ of women jazz musicians, that were just seen as musicians. And when there are more of us, I think we will,” said Sandim.