Here's something you might be interested in.
"It started with SWAN (it stands for Support Women Artists Now) Day in La Jolla."
It's Allison Adams Tucker on the phone to chat up her Women In Jazz show. She explains how, exactly, she became involved. "They had events for women artists around the world, and it was supported here [in San Diego] by the Athenaeum. I wanted to be a part of Swan Day the next year, but they ran out of funding. So, I started my own."
WomanArts SWAN day subsequently returned, but Tucker's scope was smaller:
"I kept it limited to one group."
This year, the one group is made up of local women jazzers Melonie Grinnell on piano, drummer Laurel Grinnell, Jodie Hill on bass, violinist Jamie Shadowlight, and the trombonist April West.
"It coincides with Women's History Month," Tucker says, "International Women's Day, SWAN Day, and San Diego Women's Week. It seemed like the perfect time to bring lady jazz players together and have a good time."
This is her fifth year of doing Women In Jazz. It is a gig not without its own peculiar difficulties, she says. "You have no idea how hard it is to put together an all-woman group each year."
I ask her if she can say whether women perform jazz differently than men.
"All kinds of thoughts come up when you ask that. It's still a man's world, yeah. It still feels like a man's world to me."
I'm thinking about straight ahead jazz artists like Mimi Fox, and Tierney Sutton, Marianne McPartland, Holly Hofmann, and a brilliant crossover alto saxist named Tia Fuller. To me, their music seems without reference to gender.
"Women are making their mark."
I ask Tucker's theory about why, on the other hand, women sax players in the smooth jazz movement all seem to have adopted that look of ex pole dancers or TV weather girls, which is to say one and the same.
"The ones who made it?" she says. "Because it's sexy, and sex sells. It's a man's world."
Women In Jazz: Sunday, March 24, Dizzy's, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, 858.270.7467, $15
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/mar/21/42337/
"It started with SWAN (it stands for Support Women Artists Now) Day in La Jolla."
It's Allison Adams Tucker on the phone to chat up her Women In Jazz show. She explains how, exactly, she became involved. "They had events for women artists around the world, and it was supported here [in San Diego] by the Athenaeum. I wanted to be a part of Swan Day the next year, but they ran out of funding. So, I started my own."
WomanArts SWAN day subsequently returned, but Tucker's scope was smaller:
"I kept it limited to one group."
This year, the one group is made up of local women jazzers Melonie Grinnell on piano, drummer Laurel Grinnell, Jodie Hill on bass, violinist Jamie Shadowlight, and the trombonist April West.
"It coincides with Women's History Month," Tucker says, "International Women's Day, SWAN Day, and San Diego Women's Week. It seemed like the perfect time to bring lady jazz players together and have a good time."
This is her fifth year of doing Women In Jazz. It is a gig not without its own peculiar difficulties, she says. "You have no idea how hard it is to put together an all-woman group each year."
I ask her if she can say whether women perform jazz differently than men.
"All kinds of thoughts come up when you ask that. It's still a man's world, yeah. It still feels like a man's world to me."
I'm thinking about straight ahead jazz artists like Mimi Fox, and Tierney Sutton, Marianne McPartland, Holly Hofmann, and a brilliant crossover alto saxist named Tia Fuller. To me, their music seems without reference to gender.
"Women are making their mark."
I ask Tucker's theory about why, on the other hand, women sax players in the smooth jazz movement all seem to have adopted that look of ex pole dancers or TV weather girls, which is to say one and the same.
"The ones who made it?" she says. "Because it's sexy, and sex sells. It's a man's world."
Women In Jazz: Sunday, March 24, Dizzy's, 4275 Mission Bay Drive, 858.270.7467, $15
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/mar/21/42337/