Women in Jazz launch year of events with Elgar Room discussion panel

Earlier this week, the organisation Women in Jazz hosted the first of three breakfast panel discussions in collaboration with the Royal Albert Hall, kicking off their ‘Year of Women in Jazz’ programme. As I approached the venue, I wasn’t sure what to expect; mid-Monday mornings tend to be a period of relative down-time, with most people at work - would I be the only one there? As it turns out, the Hall’s Elgar Room was packed with voices and energy when I arrived, with over 100 tickets sold. The attendees ranged from musicians, promoters, labels, media, and other assorted members of the jazz community. Lou Paley, co-founder of Women in Jazz, introduced the panelists. There was Ni Maxine, a curator and musician from Liverpool; Pelin Opcin, Director of programming at Serious (the organisation behind the EFG London Jazz Festival); Sarah-Jane Power, a programmer from the Royal Albert Hall itself; and pianist and educator Nikki Yeoh. Leading the discussion was broadcaster and journalist Kate Hutchinson.

A statistic was shared towards the beginning of the event; according to the organiser’s own research, 55.8% of polled respondents feel that women are under-represented within the UK jazz scene. It’s certainly a thought-provoking statistic, and I’d be interested to speak with those who thought that women are well-represented – evidence still points to the contrary. Sarah-Jane Power remarked that her own institution’s ‘Late Night Jazz’ series has successfully booked women-led bands for more than 50% of the events, with no difficulty in attracting an audience or musicians. Yet an audience member was prompted to ask the following: how do we bring this equitable programming to smaller, more grassroots venues across the UK, which might not benefit from a huge budget or a progressive attitude? As the discussion unfolded, more hands were increasingly raised by the attendees, more than there was time for – a sign that further spaces like this are needed.

Yeoh, the sole instrumentalist on the panel, brought a vivid insight to the negative experiences of women musicians at jam sessions, from the 1990s till the unfortunate present day. When she was starting out, the onus was on the woman to start the band, and little has changed in that regard, with Hutchinson citing a similar story told by trumpeter Yazz Ahmed. Yeoh also mentioned a recent jam that she curated and hosted at Ronnie Scott’s in London, as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, where a well-known male pianist almost refused to play with two younger, women musicians, instead choosing to “vibe them out”. One can only imagine the intense feelings of insecurity and otherness that this interaction must have conjured up, and how tragically often these situations occur. The jazz jam is perhaps one of the hardest environments to mediate in this regard; as well as overt sexism, “vibeyness” is still a prevailing part of the culture, and perhaps another reason why the jazz tradition still lags behind other popular musics in terms of gender equality and general inclusivity.

The participants of Monday’s event were all broadly within the 20-40 age bracket, bar a few. Opcin, perhaps in reaction to this, remarked that it would be useful to hear from different generations of musicians such as Alison Rayner and Deirdre Cartwright from the women-led jazz collective Blow The Fuse. In some ways, it’s alarming that at an event with such broad parameters, ‘women’ and ‘jazz’, there were so few attendees from the older generations. It’s hard to imagine a parallel scenario at a male event. Perhaps many would-be musicians, who experienced the type of sexism that Yeoh described in her anecdotes, were not able to continue beyond a certain point. A reflection that trumpeter and free improviser Kim Macari shared with me in 2019, when asked about her experience as a woman in a male-dominated field, comes to mind here:

“I often think that the people who would give really good [insights] are the ones that decided not to do music. Because the ones that do it, for whatever reason, found a way through. The problem is, the people who give up. And they’re impossible to find. It’s a really hard question to answer.”

To end on a more positive note, and as a message to those who might identify with the above, organisations such as Women in Jazz are worth participating in. Monday’s event was packed with inspirational women from the jazz community, many with stories and advice of their own which they openly shared with the room. It’s a welcome relief from the current patriarchal narrative that this jazz world is a man’s world, and a sign to keep on going.

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