WHY ARE WOMEN UNDERREPRESENTED IN JAZZ EDUCATION AND

1PERFORMANCE?

Why are Women Underrepresented in Jazz Education and Performance?

Elizabeth P. Vaughn

James Madison University

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2PERFORMANCE?

Abstract

From the beginning of jazz to today’s big bands and nightclubs, women have been severely

underrepresented in jazzer personnel. The sexism and stereotypes that engulfed female

instrumentalist back in the 1920s are still present in the professional jazz world today. The low

number of female instrumentalists participating in jazz today can be linked to a multitude of

social, psychological, and historical factors. The history of female instrumentalists, gender

associations to instruments, lack of female role models, anxieties paired with improvisation,

lowered self efficacy, stereotype threat, tokenism, and the struggles of being a female minority in

a traditionally male-only industry have perpetuated jazz to remain being seen as a masculine art

form dominated by male performers, improvisors, composers, and educators. This all begins to

develop at an early age in the classroom, when students are first introduced to jazz education.

Why are Women Underrepresented in Jazz Education and Performance?

The date is November 7th, 1940. In Fargo, North Dakota, Duke Ellington’s Orchestra is

set up on a stage in the Crystal Ballroom of the Fargo City Auditorium, about to record one of

the most well known jazz albums to date. This live recording of a standard dance gig, titled

“Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live”,​ would explode in popularity across the country and later

win the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 1980.

The date is November 17th, 2017, and the Count Basie Orchestra takes the stage in

Detroit, Michigan. The bandstand here mirrors that of the Duke Ellington Orchestra back in

1940. After 77 years of social revolution, there are still no women represented on the bandstand.
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The date is March 11th, 2017. Center stage in Indianapolis, Indiana, is the 2017 Jazz

Band of America, a national honor band comprised of the best high school students across the

country, selected by audition. Leading the ensemble is the director of jazz studies at Duquesne

University, Michael Tomaro, with guest artist Andy Martin on trombone and guest soloist Tim

Struven.

At the very end of the trumpet section, Summer Camargo takes the stage as fourth

trumpet and the only female musician in the 2017 Jazz Band of America. She is one of the four

female musicians to play in the ensemble over the past seven years, including two women in

2013, and one in 2012.

So why is Summer, a female jazz musician competitive at the national level, a minority in

2017? Where are all of the female jazzers?

Currently

Over the past few decades, it appears that women have slowly grown in numbers within

the jazz world; but what most do not know is that this growth actually started back in Duke’s

day. When talking about legendary jazz musicians, the average listener could immediately list

off a plethora of highly renown musicians such as Miles Davis, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Max

Roach, Herbie Hancock, Lester Young, Clifford Brown- the list is endless. But would Vi Redd’s

name ever come up? An alto saxophonist and vocalist who played in the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet,

sang with the Count Basie Orchestra, toured across multiple countries, and put out two original

albums, still to this day gets very little recognition as an accomplished jazz musician. Was she
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not good enough for such recognition or was she just female? What about jazz guitarist Mary

Orsborn or trombonist Melba Liston? Both are accomplished female musicians who came up

with the male jazz musicians we can recall in extensive lists at a moment's notice. This is a

commonality among female jazz musicians with one large exception: vocalists. The only female

musicians who would probably be mentioned alongside Louis Armstrong or Sonny Rollins

would be renown vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone,

Shirley Horn, Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day- and that list, too, is endless. Why is there this drastic

imbalance in both social acceptance and historical recognition between female vocalists and

female instrumentalists? Why is there so little historical recognition for female jazzers at all?

The same anomaly that took place in the beginnings of this genre is reflected in today’s

jazz community. This pattern, however, is not only present in the professional world, but is

formed in the classroom when jazz is first introduced to a student’s music education.

The quality of a one’s music education can either encourage or deter a student into or

away from pursuing music. Within those students who fall into the former, they can then be

encouraged into or deterred from the jazz genre as a whole. Why female students are more

commonly deterred from this genre today relates to the history of female instrumentalists, the

persuasive gender biases present when students choose their class instruments, the limitations of

traditional big band instrumentation, a detrimental shortage of female role models, the

intimidation that comes with jazz improvisation, decreases in self efficacy due to negative

experiences, the fear of reaffirming stereotypes engulfing their gender, threatening and
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destroying the archaic but still present patriarchal definitions of femininity, and being tokenized

as a minority in a traditionally male-dominated world.

Women on Instruments

The scarcity of female instrumentalists can be traced back to the beginnings of

instruments themselves. Women used to be socially discouraged or even banned from playing

any instruments. Over time, the piano became available to women for entertainment within the

home, usually paired with singing or occasionally the violin. According to Lucy Green’s analysis

on the topic, the voice and piano do not require movement that completely detracts from the

display of their bodies and feminine posture or presentation. Essentially, a woman can look

graceful and feminine sitting up straight at a piano with light fingers pressing the keys, but the

same cannot be said about a woman blowing bebop lines through a saxophone or trumpet. Doing

so disturbs the patriarchal image of woman and asserts a new image of control and strength. In

​ reen explains:
her book, ​Music, Gender, and Education, G

Unlike the singer, whose performance activities tend to affirm and even accentuate

femininity, the woman instrumentalist can systematically call into question and interrupt

those very reassuring signs of masked female sexuality upon with patriarchal definitions

rely for their cogency. She is not then so much that object of desire which is both loved

and feared as a slight irritation. The display she enacts, rather than that of a playful or

alluring singing bird, is that of a more controlled and rational being who appears capable

of using technology to take control over a situation. Whereas the display of singing

reproduces femininity by locking the woman singer in an affirmation of the contrary

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definition of femininity as susceptible, natural, desirable and dangerous, women’s

instrumental performance threatens to break out of patriarchal definitions and offer a

femininity which controls, a femininity which alienates itself in an object and impinges

on the world. (Green 54)

This narrative of limitations toward women continues on into the history of classical

ensembles, and eventually the jazz world. These rigid ideas of femininity may seem outdated,

but the same microaggressions about female instrumentalists have been passed from one

generation onto the next.

Instruments and Gender Associations

The beginning of any students instrumental music education starts with the selection of

an instrument. Among different music educators this process is handled in a multitude of ways,

ranging from giving the student complete control of what instrument the choose, to students

having no say in the matter at all. When students do have some autonomy over what they’ll play

in music class, there are very strong social pressures and gender-based biases present that can

heavily persuade a student’s choice of instrument.

The concept of gendered instruments is nothing new to the world of musicians; as seen in

the beginnings of instrumental music, women were only allowed to play instruments which

shape, playing position, and timbre were deemed most feminine. Women played small, soft, and

pretty instruments and music. Hundreds of years may have passed since these times, but our
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music classrooms still do not completely reflect the advances that we have made in pursuing

gender equality. Girls still play flute, and boys still play tuba.

Instruments become associated with gender for students from a very early age. In a study

conducted at the University of Texas last year, students in grades 6th, 7th, and 8th were given a

list of instruments and asked to identify each of them as either a “boy” or “girl” instrument. The

survey also recorded their gender, grade, and which of the three ensembles they were currently

playing in. Results indicated that most instruments, with the exception of saxophone and

bassoon, were almost unanimous in their given gender assignments. Flute and clarinet were

voted 100% “girl”, while trombone, euphonium, tuba, and percussion were 85-100% “boy”

instruments. Trumpets were voted 75% “boy”, and french horns were voted 60% “girl”.

Saxophone and bassoon were too close to decide whether they were mostly deemed one gender

or the other.

While this research reflected findings from many previous studies on gender and

instruments, the survey answers did change from one student to the next due to their age and

ensemble placement. In this study, “The youngest, most inexperienced musicians displayed more

openness, especially for the trumpet (as shown in Figure 2, 23% of sixth graders in beginner

band viewed trumpet as a girl instrument). Within the older, more experienced cohorts, both

trumpet and trombone were unanimously categorized as boy instruments” (Callahan, Dittloff, &

Wrape, 2016). The researchers found that the youngest musicians presented the least amount of

stereotypic gendering of instruments, and as students grew older and more advanced as

musicians, these stereotypes grew stronger.

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In another survey study conducted in 1998 by Douglas Barber at Rowan University, high

school programs from seven counties in south New Jersey were surveyed. Band directors were

instructed to take inventory of their programs based on instrument, ensemble, and gender. The

study found that while 48% of students in music programs were female, they only made up 24%

of students in jazz ensembles. The researcher found that, “As a result of the accumulated data in

relation to the previous research, a predictable gender inequity has been demonstrated to exist in

jazz band participation…. this data set suggests that females are as likely to participate in jazz

band as males if they play a jazz band instrument (Barber, 1998), suggesting that instrumentation

can also be a factor in limited female participation in jazz.

Schools could be the place for early intervention of these limiting stereotypes that only

become more prevalent as students age and progress as musicians. More often than not, however,

schools only perpetuate these gender stereotypes. This is done without the intent to do so, simply

by not taking the initiative to invoke change. Without encouraging students to explore different

instruments and genres in non-binary presentation, teachers unknowingly reaffirm this

stereotypic, binary thinking about instruments. If students only ever see females play the flute

and males play the tuba, that is how classrooms will continue to look like, as they always have.

Green discusses the role that schools take in this continuation of stereotypes and states:

The school aids in the continuation of the long history of girls’ and women’s

performance on the symbolically private side of the private/public dualism that marks the

patriarchal organization of music. Girls taking part in musical activities in schools are

overwhelmingly engaged in activities which symbolically affirm their femininity, an

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affirmation which is reiterated not merely in the reproduction of historically gendered

musical practices but in the gendered musical meanings and, beyond these, in gendered

musical experiences themselves. The musical practices, meanings and experiences

surrounding girls in contemporary schools reach out to pick up threads of the history of

women in Western music. (Green, 167)

Instrumentation of Big Bands

Coupled with instrument stereotypes, there are the limitations that come with traditional

big band instrumentation, which included mostly male-dominated instruments. Students who do

choose flute or clarinet as their primary instrument are often excluded from jazz ensembles

because they are not considered to be “jazz instruments”, despite the countless examples of jazz

flutists and clarinetists throughout jazz history.

Since the flute and clarinet are, as the current research shows, mostly female dominated,

this only extends the long list of reasons why female musicians are not often seen in jazz

ensembles. If students on traditionally “non-jazz” instruments express interest in the genre,

teachers should take this opportunity to include them despite what the traditional instrumentation

of a big band dictates. Again, schools often do not take this opportunity, stick with what is

“normal” of a jazz group, and students either take up a secondary “jazz” instrument or do not get

to participate in the genre at all, again recreating archaic traditions of the jazz world.
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Role Models

Given the history of female instrumentalists and the continuation of gender stereotypes in

today’s society, it comes as no surprise that role models for aspiring female musicians are scarce.

This detrimental shortage of women in the music industry both paints a patriarchal image of a

lasting exclusion and further perpetuates a cyclical problem: If women are not represented in the

professional world, showing girls that there is, in fact, a place for them in the jazz industry, how

will the next generation of females get there?

This is not to say that there aren’t any role models out there. ​Sisters in Jazz​ is a jazz

networking program that’s main goal is to connect female professionals to students. The program

directs female musicians into schools and competitions for guest performances, clinics, lectures,

and lessons. Every year, ​Sisters in Jazz​ organizes an international collegiate competition run by

female clinicians to play in New York City at the annual International Association of Jazz

Education conference. The formation of this program, “​...organized a call to action among

women in the jazz professio​n: find a younger jazz sister and show her the ropes, help her realize

her talent and build a career” (Cartwright, 2001).

All-women big bands have been around since the 1920s, but have received little

recognition compared to other male-dominated bands. Today, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, led by

drummer Sherrie Maricle, plays both professional gigs as well as educational clinics and guest

performances for young women.

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Unfortunately, all-women big bands and programs like ​Sisters in Jazz ​are few and far

between, and even with these networking opportunities, there is still an insufficient number of

female jazz educators, composers, and performers. On the Jazz Band of America website, there

is a list of previous guest conductors and performers that have directed the bands. Out of the past

16 years of competition, there has been one professional female musician, Patti Austin, to take

the stage with the high school ensemble.

This same exact pattern is also present at the collegiate level. The Monk Institute

International Competition is one of the most prestigious jazz competitions today, which awards

competitors with scholarship money and is known to identify and launch the careers of up and

coming jazz musicians. The competition focuses on one instrument each year. From 2007 to

2015, there have been two years of vocal competition, in addition to years of trumpet,

saxophone, drums, piano, and bass. In 2010 and 2015, the vocal years, 5 out of the 6 finalists

were female. In the instrumental competitions, there has been only one female finalist; a

saxophonist who took first place in 2013. These competitions, like the grade school classes,

collegiate ensembles, and the professional world, are male dominated.

More female role models are needed greatly. There must be more professional

instrumentalists, improvisors, composers and teachers in the jazz world. To raise the next

generation of female jazzers, there must be women in the business showing them that it’s

possible, or else this pattern will merely continue.

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Anxiety in Improvisation

Performance, improvisation, and composition are all fundamentals of jazz that are taught

and practiced in the classroom. These often are the main contributors to student anxiety, lowered

self efficacy, and overall intimidation of the genre.

The low number of female students currently participating in jazz improvisation might be

very closely connected to social psychology and the pressures present in a classroom. In a survey

study observing participation rates between genders in high school and collegiate ensembles,

researcher Kathleen McKeage simply states that, “As jazz study becomes more specialized and

advanced, there appears to be an increased expectation for improvisation and a decrease in

participation by women” (McKeage 2004).

This may occur partly because of how improvisation is presented in the classroom. In

another survey study conducted in 2006, researcher Erin Wehr-Flowers asked jazz students from

middle school band to adults in community jazz groups about their confidence levels, anxieties,

and attitudes toward improvisation. When scores were compared based on gender, Wehr-Flowers

found that women scored themselves as less confident and more anxious than men in every

subcategory. The data also showed, however, that there was no noticeable difference between

genders in their positive attitudes toward achieving success in improvisation.

Going back to the deeply rooted microaggressions against women engaging in music that

have survived for centuries, Green points out that,

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Compositional activity after polyphony becomes increasingly separate from that

of performance, requiring more control over instrumental technology and musical

technique… this kind of composition gives rise to a delineation of the genius of the

transcendent male ego. In the hands of a woman, it [polyphony] threatens the natural

bodily submission of her femininity by clearly demonstrating that she also has a mind.

Highly prized improvisatory practices, likewise, are incommensurable with a woman

musical creator because the patriarchal construction of her femininity conflicts with their

delineations of creative mental capacity. (Green, 113)

Connecting this subconscious thinking to the classroom, Wehr-Flowers points out that,

“Typical instruction in jazz improvisation requires a student to begin to try improvising in front

of other students. Such a setting is accompanied by the attention and judgement of those

students. This setting might induce anxiety that hinders learning and creativity, particularly for

young women and girls who perceive jazz as an inappropriate filed for members of their sex”

(Wehr-Flowers, 2006).

To reduce anxieties, Wehr-Flowers suggests to introduce improvisation to students in

smaller settings that utilize friend groups as support systems.“Improvisation might be better

introduced in private lessons or small ensembles formed around peer groups such as a jazz flute

ensemble or small combo of like personalities. All-female groups might provide the needed

comfort zone for girls to try improvisation” (Wehr-Flowers, 2006).

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Being a Minority in the Classroom

Since the beginnings of the genre, jazz and improvisation have too often been coupled

with an overwhelming strong sense of masculinity. To be able to hit the changes and soar

through bop lines is still seen as masculine, to one degree or another, and is often the reason why

women who succeed in the genre are commonly described by critics and fellow musicians as

“playing like a man”. A shift in this culture is desperately needed, and is starting to take shape,

but with ever so gradual progress.

Female musicians who do stick with jazz and participate in ensembles tend to be a

minority of the group. Wehr suggests that with any student put in this kind of setting,

social-psychological variables such as confidence, anxiety, attitude, physiological states, social

persuasions, and motivational processes can all factor into student experiences, be they positive

or negative ones (Wehr, 2015).

In her study investigating the experiences of women in jazz, Wehr found that tokenism,

self efficacy, and stereotype threat all work in tandem when a woman is, essentially, “the odd

man out” in a jazz ensemble. She further explains that women, when they are the minority in a

male-dominated group, are often put into one of four more acceptable roles: the seductress, the

pet, the mother, or the iron maiden. Each role diminishes the woman’s ability as a musician and

her true role as a contributor to the group. She is instead seen as the sexual object, cheerleader,

caretaker, or “manly” woman of the group (Wehr 2015). When this happens, females in the

group can become fearful that whatever actions they take within that environment might

re-establish stereotypes about women. Experiences for females in this kind of setting are what
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can either encourage a student to continue in jazz or deter them from the genre. Self efficacy is

formed through these experiences, in addition to seeing role models, social persuasions, and

physiological factors (such as anxiety). These three main factors in turn determine jazz

participation, from middle school students to professional musicians.

Invoking Change in the Classroom: Early Intervention

As the research of Callahan, Dittloff, & Wrape in 2016 has previously stated, the best

time to invoke change is at the earliest age possible. Wherever students are first introduced to

instruments and jazz, it should be a place of gender neutrality and openness to a wide variety of

both jazz and “non-jazz” instruments. Students should be encouraged to explore different

instruments without gender identity at the forefront of their decisions. Role models should be

brought into classrooms whenever possible, especially female instrumentalists and musicians

whose instruments combat associated genders, such as male flute players and female

trombonists.

Educators should be aware that improvisation in large settings can be daunting, and that

for some students, male or female, smaller groups or even independent work could be more

psychologically beneficial before have them play in front of an entire ensemble comprised of

their peers.

There are many ways educators can combat the stereotypes that female instrumentalists,

as well as other minorities, face in classrooms. The key is early intervention. If educators could

strip the daunting sense masculinity and intimidation from their jazz environment, as well as rid
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the concept of gendered instruments and female stereotypes, classrooms could open up to a much

larger population of learners. This is a slow process, undoing what centuries of music history and

education have set, but it’s a process that is worth the time and effort.

Change can also be made in future investigation on this ever growing area of research.

Observing the effects that female jazz educators have on the demographics of their ensemble

members would be fascinating, given the power that role models have proven to have on

students. Another area worth exploration might be how students who do not associate themselves

strictly as male or female, or are in transition between genders or sexulaity experience these

stereotypes and gender associations with the instruments they play.

The first step towards breaking this cycle of one all-male big band to the next is to

actively address this problem and find ways to stop this archaic pattern before the next

generation of students adopt it. With proper intervention, the next generation of musicians that

we teach can be one filled with female jazzers who can confidently play alongside men in

nightclubs and on bandstands. This shift has already been set in motion, and needs educators to

fuel its progress until female instrumentalists are no longer a minority in jazz classrooms and the

professional world.
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References

Barber, D. P. (1998). ​A study of jazz band participation by gender in secondary high school

instrumental music programs​ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Rowan University, NJ.

Cartwright, K. (2001). Sisters in Jazz and Beyond (Through Mentorship, Musicianship, and

Ability). ​Jazz Educators Journal: Official Magazine of the National Association of Jazz

Educators​. ​33​(6) 70-76.

The Count Basie Orchestra. (2017).​ The Count Basie Orchestra Personnel.​ Retrieved from

http://www.thecountbasieorchestra.com/cbo-personnel/

Dittloff, A., Callahan, J., & Wrape, E. (2016). Gender and musical instrument stereotypes in

middle school children: Have trends changed?. ​Applications Of Research In Music

Education, 34​(3) 40-47.

Green, L. (1997). ​Music, gender and education​. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McKeage, K. (2004). Gender and Participation in High School and College Instrumental Jazz

Ensembles. ​Journal of Research in Music Education. 52​(4) 343-356.

​ etrieved from
Music For All. (2017). ​Jazz Band of America. R

http://www.musicforall.org/what-we-do/honor-ensembles/jazz-band-of-america
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Stewart, A. (2007). Going for It: All-Women Bands. In Making the Scene: Contemporary New

York City Big Band Jazz. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: ​University of California

Press.​ (pp. 257-277).

​ etrieved
Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. (2017). ​Competition: Past Winners and Judges. R

from ​http://monkinstitute.org/competition/past-winners-and-judges/

Wehr, E. (2015). Understanding the experiences of women in jazz: A suggested model.

International Journal of Music Education​. ​34​(4), 472-487

Wher-Flowers, E. (2006). Differences between Male and Female Students' Confidence, Anxiety,

and Attitude toward Learning Jazz Improvisation. ​Journal of Research in Music

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