Daily Skimm

Listen up, music lovers: Tomorrow is International Jazz Day. To kick things off on the right note, we spoke to drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice — and first woman to win a Grammy for best jazz instrumental album. Because despite some big names throughout history (Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Norah Jones, to name a few), women are still vastly underrepresented in the genre. Here’s what she had to say… 

Q: Jazz has been slow to embrace female musicians. Why is that?

It’s systemic oppression that has happened on many levels … When slavery ended and people could travel, men were the ones that were traveling. That started a whole culture of male musicians on the road [and it not being] safe for women. Or, jazz being played in brothels and places that “respectable” women weren’t supposed to be at … Jazz has not had the same checks and balances that other fields have had. We have a musicians’ union, but it’s up to the musicians, up to the stakeholders, up to the business people — all the infrastructures that are still led mostly by men — it’s up to them to instate different practices within their work. And to recognize that the music itself won’t be its best until everybody is able to be the creators of it.

Q: Does the lack of gender equity exist across the board in jazz? Or has women’s representation been greater for certain positions?

There’s an unwritten narrative that has supported the idea that women sing jazz and men play it. Of course, there are some exceptions, especially when it comes to piano, which has always been seen as a respectable instrument for women to play … But there’s always been singers. When you’re a singer standing up front, you’re also an entertainer. You’re selling something, you’re sexualized … It’s like you can be a commodity, in that way. But just being artistic and being celebrated for that is a different story.

Q: What can be done to encourage more women to pursue jazz? 

Jazz is such a small percentage of the music industry — I think it’s around 2%. So exposure is always going to be key for anybody … But with that, who’s being exposed? That’s important because people need to see themselves in something. So if you only see a lot of men playing the music, without even thinking about it, you don’t see yourself doing it. That’s shifting. Lots of things are shifting now, and the future looks much brighter to me now than it did even just a few years ago. 

Q: What musicians would you recommend for someone new to jazz?

Kassa Overall. He made a record called “Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz” … [It’s] a great example of blending jazz with hip hop. Another artist is Melanie Charles. I like how she blends jazz with hip hop, too. She had a record called “Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women,” where she took some classic jazz songs by Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Betty Carter, Dinah Washington, and others. And then she put a hip hop spin on those actual recordings — almost like remixes. And then there’s the classics. Jazz that’ll either speak to you or it won’t. Everybody cites Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” as one … I also love “John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman,” which is the only album they did together.